Gorillaz marked their 29th anniversary with a first-ever stadium show at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
Damon Albarn forgot himself. On Friday night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, rehearsals were underway for Gorillaz' first stadium show - a multicultural, multimedia pop extravaganza with more than 30 guests from 15 countries.
As the band launched into Dirty Harry, the long LED screens lit up with a cartoon choir singing the refrain. Albarn, taken by surprise, jumped off the stage to watch with a broad grin. Then he spotted Argentine rapper Trueno striding across the stadium floor and rushed over for a hug. The band played on without their leader, and it took almost 10 minutes for Albarn to realize he might be needed on stage.
"I'm the worst frontman," he confessed an hour earlier. "I'm terrible. I have a very relaxed approach to showmanship."
Quite the opposite: Albarn's laid-back vibes set the tone for the whole entourage. Backstage at Tottenham, there were more than 30 musicians from 15 different countries, and not a scintilla of ego between them.
"The vibe is ridiculous," said South African singer Moonchild Sanelly. "Damon is open, he's cool, he has the humility. Everybody whose art he admires, he brings them along for the ride."
"It's an eclectic family for sure," said folk singer and poet Kara Jackson. "It's kind of like coming from the South, where I'm from in the States. You have cousins, but they're not really your blood cousins - you've just been calling your mum's best friend your aunt for all these years."
Behind the scenes, it was like a United Nations of music. Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara chatted in traditional Wassoulou clothes, while Johnny Marr ambled past in an equally traditional Mancunian parka. American alt-pop heroes Sparks pulled up in a black BMW just after 17:00 BST and retrieved their stage costumes. Twenty minutes later, they rehearsed The Happy Dictator; followed by Shaun Ryder hamming up his part on the 2005 classic Dare!
"We're an unusual group, aren't we?" said Marr. "I don't think there's anything quite like it. Not in my experience, anyway."
Over in the canteen, Syrian and African musicians chowed down with Posdnuos from De La Soul and sitar legend Anoushka Shankar. On the menu: honey-glazed lime chicken, roast sea bass, caramelised leek penne and an outrageously moreish passion fruit meringue.
"The catering here is top notch, man," said UK rapper Bashy. "When we went on the tour with Gorillaz the first time (in 2010), I put on so much weight that, when I came home, I had to get in the gym and get right."
One person who won't need a post-show workout is Jamie Hewlett – who dreamt up the idea of Gorillaz as a "virtual group" with Albarn in 1998. He was roving the stadium with a camera crew, shooting a documentary commemorating this one-off event. The end result will show the human musicians mingling with their cartoon counterparts.
"The aim is to reveal what it takes to put on a show like this," he said. "We have artists filming themselves getting on planes from different parts of the world, then everybody coming together here in Tottenham, the arrival of the fans, the Gorillaz show, and the aftermath, when there's only empty beer cups left."
His enthusiasm was laced with surprise. Gorillaz wasn't meant to last for 28 years. "We were going to do one album for fun," he said. "We had no idea it'd keep going. I think it's lasted because of the collaborations, and also because of the cartoons. You attract new generations because they like the cartoons, and then your nine-year-old kid is discovering Bobby Womack or Mark E Smith and all of the wonderful people we work with."