Growing up, I was a big Blur fan which set the stage and made me an even bigger fan of Damon Albarn’s more recent musical endeavor, Gorillaz. I had never seen either band and good fortune came my way when just two hours before the show, after posting on Facebook that I was in search of a solo ticket, I received a message from the editor of this site offering me a ticket in exchange for writing up my experience at the show. “Yes, of course” I responded! As I walked towards the Ball Arena, I stopped in for a quick Margarita on Larimer Square. To my excitement, the bartender was already playing Gorillaz on the stereo and told me she wished she could be going to the show as well.
When I walked into the downtown venue I noticed how long the merchandise line was, but I wanted to get to my seat in time to see EARTHGANG. These guys were excellent and even got the crowd in on a “when I say Earth, you say Gang” chant several times through out the show. At one point they encouraged everyone to shine their phone’s flashlights which created a sea of stars in the cavernous room for all of us to enjoy. After the set I went back to the merchandise area only to find the line was twice as long at this point so I settled on a beer and some casual conversation with strangers as I waited for the main event.
Just before 9pm, the room went dark and a graphic of a static television appeared on the screen before the members of Gorillaz started coming onto the stage. The lighting then turned to green and the word “HELLO” filled the giant screen and prompted Albarn to yell “Hello!” as he took his spot at the front of the stage. The band kicked things off with “M1 A1” as Albarn climbed onto the speakers at the front of the stage wielding his guitar like the Rock star he is. Meanwhile, the virtual, cartoon band made up of 2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs took their places on the screen in a sort of alternate reality looming over the stage. There were even a few songs with renderings of some of the band’s collaborators, like Kevin Parker from Tame Impala and Thundercat.
During the third song of the show, “Tranz,” Albarn climbed down off the stage to high-five fans in the first couple of rows. As the band kicked into “Tomorrow Comes Today” from their eponymous 2001 debut, he picked up a Melodica to play the songs introductory riff. During “Rhinestone Eyes” the former Blur frontman left the stage entirely and climbed the stairs stage left towards where I was sitting, singing as he went. While the show was definitely heavy on material from the group’s first three albums, midway through the set, EARTHGANG emerged to perform “Opium” from Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez with Albarn sitting at the piano and helping out on the chorus. A few songs later, Gorillaz welcomed Bootie Brown (The Pharcyde) to rap on “Dirty Harry.” Meanwhile, the video images in the background featured the faces of cartoon children singing the chorus, as if they were a choir. (Listen Here!)
After closing the main set with “Plastic Beach,” (Listen Here!) Albarn and company once again welcomed Bootie Brown to kick off the encore with a new song called “New Gold.” Brown stayed out for “Stylo” and sang both Mos Def and Bobby Womack’s parts from the recording. Next up, Pos from De La Soul joined the fun to by introducing “Feel Good Inc.” with a speech about how you should never let anyone tell you how you feel before reprising his role from the original recording. For the final song of the night, they served up “Clint Eastwood” and while he wasn’t there in person, Del The Funky Homosapien appeared on the screen over the stage in footage from the songs original video. They added an extra outro at the end of the song with a Reggae Ska riff and Sweetie Irie ushered us out with a reggae vibe to wrap an incredible evening in Denver.
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