Gorillaz: Feeling happy feeling glad at Birmingham's BP Pulse arena

After a four year break, Gorillaz are back touring and for their third night of performances, they spend it in Birmingham.

In promotion of their latest album release- ‘The Mountain’, the band are currently touring the UK and Northern Ireland to perform their new, highly-anticipated singles (as well as a few oldies on the way).

Playing over 20 songs and spending just under two hours on stage, the band managed to encapsulate the diverse range of genres, sounds and instruments which make the group as loved as they are.

The makeup of the band can be confusing to some- although there are four animated characters that appear on the music videos, album covers and social media posts, Damon Albarn is the composer of the songs alongside various collaborators.

This makes the technical term for the group more of a musical project rather than a band; for the sake of my own sanity (and to keep this review uniform and easily understood) I’m still going to refer to them as a band…

                       (Image credit: Wonker. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gorillaz.jpg )

The night was kicked off by the band themselves- no supporting acts which I found odd.

There are multiple reasons why musicians have warm-up acts but my favourite reason for them are that they play a vital role in hyping up a crowd before the main performance starts.

This being said, you could really see the consequences of not having any amongst the audience.

Although the crowd still chanted, applauded and squealed when they heard their favourite songs, they were no physical signs of enjoyment.

From where I was stood, no one was properly dancing and it was just the odd few who were singing along.

For me, this brought both the mood and vibe down massively.

However, the people who were dancing and singing along looked amazing and you could truly see how much the songs meant to them just by watching them.

During the night, songs across six of their nine studio albums were performed.

Other than their being a primarily focus on ‘The Mountain’, a big chunk of the songs came from their second album ‘Demon Days’ which is widely recognised as their most popular and iconic LP.

Well known songs such as ‘Dirty Harry’, ‘Melancholy Hill’ and ‘Feel Good Inc.’ were part of the setlist as well as new releases ‘The Hardest Thing’, ‘Damascus’ and ‘Delirium’.

By listening to Damon switching from an old release to a new one, you can really hear the difference between the songs.

‘The Mountain’ definitely sounds like an album that is released later in life.

You can hear the reflection and life experiences that they had to have in order to record the album.

This being said, their latest releases didn’t really do a lot for me.

I could still appreciate the talent behind the songs and I would lying if I said I wasn’t mesmerised by the graphics, the difference in melodies and the amount of special guests Albarn brought on the stage as collaborators.

Gorillaz are not in my top 10 bands but I do have a lot of love for the alt-rock group.

I have my favourite songs, ones I’m not a fan of and ones that I haven’t heard.

And to me, that is one of the most beautiful things about live music.

Going to a gig and hearing a song you’ve never heard before and then falling in love with said song is one of the best feelings for any music lover.

During the Birmingham show, that song for me was '19-2000'- a trip-hop masterpiece from the self-titled album ‘Gorillaz’.

A song which will become my personality for the next month and has already made its way onto three of my playlists.

I also surprised myself by misreading the setlist before the show.

‘Clint Eastwood’ is one of my favourite songs from the group and by reading the setlist wrong, the feelings I had when I heard the first few sludgy bars of the melody were unmatched.

The live rendition of this song in particular sounds completely different- if not better.

It has more deep and ‘dirty’ contrasts to it that aren’t heard as much on the recorded version.

In all, the Birmingham night of their tour was amazing.

Featuring several collaborators, multiple music genres coming together at once, and a variety of beats and tempos, Gorillaz certainly proved that they still have it.

A talent is a gift and will stay with you for life, that’s exactly what Damon Albarn proved and will still prove on the tour dates yet come.