The virtual band created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett has burgeoned into a real-life phenomenon, with a 12-year string of Billboard hits, sold-out arenas and critical acclaim. At the drafty Oracle Arena in Oakland, the cartoon characters seen in the narrative music videos took to the flesh as a star-studded collective to wreak havoc on our senses and make love to our ears.
Although the venue is typically used for Warriors games, motor cross and Roger Waters concerts and was not conducive to schmoozing or dancing like some of the more intimate San Francisco venues nearby, those who chose to stand up and flail around could do so without feeling self-conscious, as seats were strategically placed to direct everyone’s attention to the stage.
Gorillaz unleashed a fire hose of visual stimulation with a carousel of vocalists, players and instrumentalists (including an Arab-American unit performing the intro to “White Flag”), gliding on and off stage while music videos and intervals of cartoon dialogue pulsed on the massive screen overhead. They ran with the Halloween theme, with grinning jack-o’-lanterns placed around the stage and band members wearing perspiration-smeared zombie makeup and sporting Inglorious Basterds army-sergeant uniforms and goblin masks.
They offered up a perfect mix of old and new songs off their various albums and EPs, with uptempo dance numbers like “DARE” and the emotional “Cloud Of Unknowing,” featuring Bobby Womack (during which they showed graphic clips of war planes crashing). The set list delighted even the most casual fan (a.k.a. parents chaperoning their 12-year-olds—“Hey, it’s the iPod song!”)
As disgruntled as fans may have been about the wallet gashing they endured on the $100 tickets, $30 parking fee and $8 watery beer, the constant barrage of animation, Yukimi Nagano’s tinkling voice, masked brass players, vigorous rapping and Albarn’s lithe vocals and attempted political banter made the outside melt away, if only for 90 minutes.
—text and photo by Maureen Coulter
