To see video from last night's show, click here.
GRAND PRAIRIE -- Call it anarchy as an art form.
In concert, as on record, Gorillaz -- the brainchild of ex-Blur front man Damon Albarn and cartoonist Jamie Hewlett -- gleefully smashes together disparate moods, styles and sounds. It should not hold together, let alone win legions of fans, but Albarn and Hewlett have done precisely that.
Over the course of three studio albums, Albarn and a small army of collaborators have perfected the art of pop songs conceived at curious angles and performed at a remove, behind the guise of animated characters that often play like darkly comic riffs on rock stars behaving badly. It's all very conceptual and often bracingly surreal; Gorillaz is nothing if not hipster bait. Yet, Wednesday night at the Verizon Theatre, Albarn deftly bent the lines between fiction and reality, pushing his two-dimensional ideas into full-blown, life-size excursions through the sonic universe.
Given Gorillaz's penchant for dense, intricately constructed songs incorporating everything from straight-ahead hip-hop to ambient mood music, it's nothing short of amazing that Albarn and his extensive cast of touring musicians (among them, two former members of the Clash, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon; groundbreaking rap trio De La Soul, R&B legend Bobby Womack and Chicago's skilled Hypnotic Brass Ensemble) pulled off what seemed, on the surface, to be impossible. For just over 90 minutes, everything cohered, even as the music shifted and shrank, growing from grinding and desperate (Stylo, an early highlight) to playful and endearing (Superfast Jellyfish).
Above and behind the mass of performers onstage -- there were rarely fewer than 15 musicians on stage at any one time; at one point, there were more than 30 -- sat a screen, upon which clips of the animated "band members" were shown. It made for a seamless multimedia spectacle, incorporating left-field touches like a Bruce Willis cameo in the clip for Stylo or, during Dirty Harry, a backdrop of sinister-looking, animated schoolchildren singing the hook.
The occasion for this first-ever world tour, the release of Gorillaz's superb third album, Plastic Beach, provided much of the evening's set list. What proved most fascinating was the visual elements, which relied heavily upon juxtapositions of serenity and violence, pursuit and escape. Those themes are touched upon in the music found on all three Gorillaz albums, but to see it so fully embraced and realized only deepened the power of songs like To Melancholy Hill or Cloud of Unknowing, which kicked off the generous encore.
Another irony: Albarn appeared to be having the time of his life playing these gloomy, melodic ditties. The crowd was electrified from the opening moments and Albarn reflected all that love right back at 'em; his restless, almost child-like enthusiasm found him wedged between back-up singers, belting out lyrics, or hunched over a piano or mock-conducting the sprawling collective assembled onstage. His vitality provided a nice counterpoint to the often grim imagery onscreen.
It made for a kinetic evening, the sort where performer and audience are in near-lockstep, feeding off of each other. Whether this tour is a one-off or not, anyone who argued they did not get their money's worth would be lying. The year still has a few big shows on the horizon, but as 2010 winds down, it's nearly impossible to think this wonderfully off-kilter, guest star-stuffed, artfully anarchic extravaganza won't be considered one of its best shows.
Here is some video I shot last night of Gorillaz and opening act N.E.R.D.
