As Damon Albarn of Gorillaz returned to the stage of the Hollywood Palladium for a final set on Monday, Feb. 23, he thanked the audience for helping him out of the blues that gripped him earlier in the day.
“Listen, you made me enjoy myself tonight,” said Albarn, who co-founded the virtual group with artist Jamie Hewlett on a late ’90s break from his Britpop band Blur. “I was very genuinely quite, quite angst-ridden this afternoon.
“For many reasons,” he added. “But thank you very much for your generosity.”
The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn, seen here, and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn, seen here during “Dirty Harry,” and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph, which shows Albarn with Idles singer Joe Talbott, a contributor to the album and concert, was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph shows Albarn with Kara Jackson, a former National Youth Poet Laureate, was taken during the second night when Jackson sang on “Orange County” and “The Sweet Prince.” (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph which shows on screen the late Dennis Hopper, a vocal contributor to the title track, was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph of Albarn with Posdnous of De La Soul, was taken during the performance of “Feel Good Inc.” on the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph, which shows Albarn with Indian singer Asha Puthli, a collaborator on the album and in concert, was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph, which shows the title of the album in a version of Sanskrit on screen, was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn, seen here, and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph of Albarn standing at attention during the show-opening performance of the title track was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn, seen here, and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn, seen here, and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) Show Caption1 of 13The English virtual group Gorillaz, cofounded by Blur singer Damon Albarn, seen here, and artist Jamie Hewlett, debuted its ninth studio album “The Mountain” with a pair of full performances of the record that arrives on Friday, Feb. 27, at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunday and Monday, Feb. 22-23. This photograph was taken during the second night. (Photo by Pooneh Ghana) ExpandGenerosity, sure, but it also difficult to stay down in the dumps when there’s so much joy in the room. And at the Palladium, there was love throughout the night for Albarn, the main face of the band, the 20 musicians who backed him on stage, and guest artists that included Sparks, De La Soul and Kara Jackson, a former National Youth Poet Laureate.
Gorillaz is so busy in Los Angeles this week that the city council should give them a key to the city. A pair of Palladium shows on Sunday and Monday featured the group’s ninth album, “The Mountain,” which arrives on Friday. Gorillaz’s immersive exhibition “House of Kong” opens on Thursday, Feb. 26, for a four-week run in downtown Los Angeles.
On March 7, Gorillaz is the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”
Maybe Albarn was just tired, thinking about all that work that lay ahead. But that didn’t show in a terrific performance by the sprawling ensemble that included all 15 songs on “The Mountain” and five fan favorites spread across an hour and 45 minutes.
“The Mountain” is an album steeped in the transition between the living and the dead. Or as Russell Hobbs, the virtual drummer in the animated characters’ quartet, is quoted in the record’s press release, “It’s a musical meditation infused with light. A journey of the soul, with beats.”
The title track opened with a gorgeous soundscape of harmonies, Albarn standing at attention at center stage as backing singers Angel Williams-Silvera, Rebecca Freckleton, Michelle Ndegwa and Jesse Appiah-Bediakoh sang wordless vocals, and a band that included Javad Butah on tabla and Arjun K. Verma on sitar created a lush, exotic drone.
The diversity of influences continued throughout the record and the performances on Monday. Albarn and Hewlett spent considerable time in India as they worked on the album, recording in different cities there as well as at home in England, and for some tracks in Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, Damascus in Syria, as well as New York City, Miami and Los Angeles.
“The Moon Cave” followed, with 81-year-old Indian singer Asha Puthli singing with Albarn as she does on the record, while the Roots’ vocalist Black Thought rapped his featured verse via video. [For Sunday’s debut at the Palladium, he’d performed live.]
The more straightforward pop song – straightforward being a relative thing for Gorillaz and the new album – with Russell and Ron Mael of Sparks joining Albarn for “The Happy Dictator,” as the screen behind the band filled with Hewlett’s distinctive hand-drawn visuals.
And so it went, as Gorillaz played through “The Mountain.”
“The Hardest Thing,” which featured the late Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen on vocals in Yoruba, flowed seamlessly into “Orange County,” two songs linked by the shared lyrics “You know the hardest thing / Is to say goodbye to someone you love.”
[The title “Orange County” represents nothing more than the label on a demo for the song Albarn recorded with singer Peso Pluma in an Orange County studio before ultimately deciding to go a different direction.]Joe Talbot, singer with the English punk band Idles, joined Albarn on stage for the dub reggae-inspired “The God of Lying,” while “The Manifesto” featured recorded vocals by Argentinian rapper Trueno and the late rapper Proof.
The use of featured vocalists, both living and dead, continued throughout the run of the album and show. In addition to Allen and Proof, the roll call of the no-longer-living performers on Monday included actor Dennis Hopper, singer Bobby Womack, and Mark E. Smith of the English band the Fall.
Highlights of the second half of the album – side 2 if you’re old – included the midtempo rocker “The Plastic Guru” and Arabic-English lyrical mix of “Damascus,” and the dreamy melodies of “The Shadowy Light,” which via audio files included such vocalists as Indian star Asha Bhosle and Gruff Rhys of the Welsh band Super Furry Animals.
After “The Sad God” lifted the needle from grooves of “The Mountain” set, Gorillaz returned to shift from the moodier vibe of the new record to the high-energy rock ‘n’ roll of earlier albums.
Rapper Bootie Brown joined the band for “Dirty Harry,” the animated video for which drew cheers from the crowd before a note had been played. Posdnous of De La Soul joined Albarn for a rousing run through “Feel Good Inc.,” the audience singing loudly on the choruses.
And finally, Del the Funky Homosapien returned – earlier in this brief set, he’d rapped to “Rock the House” – for “Clint Eastwood,” one of Gorillaz biggest hits. Propelled by its massive bassline, Del rapped the verses with Albarn leading the crowd throughout the choruses, until finally, the night was done.
“Everything falls to pieces when you have a party on a Monday night. You know that,” Albarn had said much earlier in the show. But sometimes, as with the Palladium show, they fall apart in the most beautiful of ways.
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