Photo: Renaud Philippe
There really is nothing new under the sun, even in pop music, but what there is instead, is something that’s ‘new’ to people too young to have seen it before, and people who have seen it before, and don’t mind seeing it re-done by new people.
Pink Floyd were offering interesting visuals to counteract their less than stellar stage personalities well over forty years ago, and Midlands noizeniks Pop Will Eat Itself were shouting political invective over a bedrock of colliding sound samples in the eighties – so this idea is not original, but that does not detract from the skill and invention with which it is delivered.
This is Gorillaz, Damon Albarn’s ‘other’ band, his art-rock brainchild conceived with graphic artist friend Jamie Hewlett. At first it was the cartoon personas that everyone saw on the internet, but Albarn has taken to touring with live musicians. That provides the slightly disturbing notion of Albarn’s image on the side screens, and the cartoon faces of the ‘band’ lip-synching to live vocals on the huge stage backdrop.
Albarn is obviously in character as the ‘anti-rock star’ rock star, scruffily dressed in drab, dark clothes, unshaven, and looking somewhat bleary. But appearances are always deceptive in pop, Albarn may not be a ‘rock star’ but he clearly is a Renaissance Man.
Damon Albarn is rightly aware of his pop genius, and that everything going on tonight is going on because he thought of it, so he has no problem at all in handing over the spotlight to Keleda and Danny Brown for ‘Submission’, and a potential scene stealer that is Peven Everett delivering an incendiary version of ‘Strobelight’ that instantly shifts the show’s atmosphere up several notches.
The addition of special guests is another modern phenomenon which Damon Albarn is happy to use to enhance his live outings with Gorillaz, and if anyone thought he had lost control to Jamie Principle with his show-stopping ‘Sex Murder Party’, they are brought sharply back into focus with ‘Dare’.
‘Dare’ is the sort of song most bands hang an entire career on. Its banging synth beats boom out into the night sky and the ghostly image of the pre-dentally adjusted Shaun Ryder combines to steer the band and the audience into the final straight.
More hits send the folks home happy – ‘Kids With Guns’ is powerful, ‘Clint Eastwood’ is suitably trippy and dreamy, and ‘Don’t Get Lost In Heaven’ and ‘Demon Dayz’ set the seal firmly on a magic evening of utterly modern pop presented for seriously large scale audiences.
It’s the mark of any stadium-level band that they can look comfortable on the Bell Stage at the Festival D’Ete here in Quebec. Their show alone is worth the festival ticket price. We can only wait in joyful anticipation to see what the organisers can bring to the party next year.
