Recap Gorillaz at the Target Center

Twelve years and three albums into the collaboration between Blur frontman Damon Albarn and Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett, Gorillazʼs first world tour has been met with a formidable amount of buzz. Not only is the nautically themed Escape To Plastic Beach Tour circumnavigating the globe, it also marks the first time that Gorillaz can be seen onstage and not playing behind a massive screen. What started as a genre-bending mad-scientist stab at creating a virtual band has, over the span of a decade, become more like a circus with ringmasters Albarn and Hewlett managing an ever-changing and always impressive collection of players. And Albarn went all out on his latest batch of bandmates: Bobby Womack, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones of The Clash, Simon Tong of The Verve, and an array of British and American hip-hop powerhouses.

After the band’s cartoon members—Murdoc, Noodle, and 2D—got some screen time, last night’s Target Center show opened with the instrumental intro from the new album. This setup was the motif that would continue throughout the night: an audiovisual pairing of Hewlettʼs cinematic neon plastic euphoria with Albarn and crewʼs sonic equivalent. The result, both visually stunning and theatrically ingenious, served to distract the audience from the absence of some collaborators. (Case in point: Snoop Dogg welcomed the crowd via video.) As the musicians ambled onstage, pulpy blue silhouettes underneath the shadows on the screen, the gigantic letters G-O-R-I-L-L-A-Z slowly blinked on one by one, and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble rolled languidly through the intro. With the hellos said and done, Albarn and co. burst into motion, turning up the heat with “19-2000.”

What Gorillaz does expertly is timing, like the choreographed sway of all of the players in the backup band (both brass and string). The musicians in the foreground looked equally well prepared. Mick Jones was effortlessly cool, skulking backwards with his Telecaster jutting out like a machine gun, appearing surprisingly at home next to an orchestra. There’s a streamlined transference of energy from one song to the next, upbeat to down, dub to rock: Gorillaz live is the physical representation of its hodgepodge of styles and the world it’s created, a world where De La Soul backed by half of The Clash doesn’t just work but also makes sense. From Bobby Womackʼs jaw-dropping vocals on “Stylo” to the constant bravado of Jones sneering at everyone and no one in particular, from De La Soulʼs whip-smart verse on “Superfast Jellyfish” to Rosie Wilsonʼs frenetic vocals on the electric boogie showstopper “DARE”—everything about the show seemed calculated yet effortless, tightly knit yet somehow still loose enough to flow in one constant current, start to finish.

And at the helm of all this is Albarn, the crazed captain, jumping like a boxer before a fight, gesticulating wildly, crouching on a speaker to peer out into a sea of hands, then leaping to the piano just in time. At one point he exclaimed, “I think weʼve blown a speaker, believe it or not.” But no worries; he told a story about being the first Western band to play in Syria, then brought out a group of Arab-American musicians to sit in on a wild and chaotic extended version of “White Flag,” bringing the main set to a close with “Glitter Freeze,” followed by Plastic Beachʼs title track.

“This song has become my favorite,” Womack said of the encoreʼs morose and beautiful “Cloud Of Unknowing,” which was expertly paired with footage of WWII detritus being pushed into the ocean, only to later wash up onto the beach. In a jarring transition, “Cloud” was followed by two songs, “Feel Good Inc.” and “Clint Eastwood,” that shimmer with carnival-like optimism. But when you think about it, thatʼs what Gorillaz is all about: the absurdity of all of this, the deconstruction of all of that, and the Feel Good Inc. That, and proving that arena shows can still astound.

Set list
“Orchestral Intro”
“Welcome To The World Of The Plastic Beach”
“19-2000”
“Last Living Souls”
“O Green World”
“Stylo”
“Melancholy Hill”
“Rhinestone Eyes”
“Superfast Jellyfish”
“Kids With Guns”
“Tomorrow Comes Today”
“Broken”
“Dirty Harry”
“El Manana”
“DARE”
“White Flag”
“Glitter Freeze”
“Plastic Beach”

Encore
“Cloud Of Unknowing”
“Feel Good Inc.”
“Clint Eastwood”
“Don’t Get Lost In Heaven”
“Demon Days”