Piecing together one of the band’s best albums in time for a twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration is no small feat. But Damon Albarn has done it, a collection of featured artists worth hearing can be found on The Mountain, a piece of work which will rank among Albarn and the band’s very best. A thrilling, deeply personal experience where Albarn writes as openly as he did on Blur’s The Ballad of Darren. Much like the songs featured on what may be the Albarn-fronted, Graham Coxon-featuring band’s final outing, the feeling found on The Mountain (and the show at Co-Op Live Arena as a result) is one of finality. Albarn has already confirmed Gorillaz will be passed on to the next generation when the time is right. Before that, he has time to set a standard which they must keep for him when he passes the torch. It’ll be hard to beat what he and the group did on their first UK tour in over five years – a showstopping performance that both revitalises the hits but keeps its contemporary tracks close.
A twenty-three-song stretch of all-time great tracks, new and old, backed by a few surprise appearances from Joe Talbot of Idles and Posdnuos for The God of Lying and Feel Good Inc., respectively. Albarn looks to be truly enjoying himself on stage here, reintroducing the late Mark E. Smith to the crowd before a rousing performance of Delirium. It’s the featured artists which made The Mountain what it is, a roaring success of world music and different upbringings pooled together to make an essential blur of accepting and processing grief. But with the show at the Co-Op Live Arena, despite those features still occurring, Albarn is very much flying solo. He is backed by impressive visuals and a clean, mistake-free sound, but he navigates a deeply personal set of songs with a sincerity which, while expected, still proves to be a tearjerker of an experience. It’s embedded in those new songs, The Happy Dictator and Orange County, particularly.
But tour debut track The Shadowy Light is a rare gem to keep an ear out for on future performances. Gorillaz seem keen to switch out this track or that moment for the sake of keeping the setlist fresh for themselves, but also in the hopes of surprising their audience. It works like a charm, Kids With Guns is still a roaring, relevant song with an outstanding climax that pools the instrumental thrill, the vocal highs, and deeper meaning of a song pushed to its very best. Albarn and the band do that enough throughout the show, a rollout of hits like On Melancholy Hill, Stylo, and Dirty Harry is a welcome break from the excellent material from The Mountain. Crucially, though, is that the material is some of the best Gorillaz has ever released, and it may be their peak for years to come.
It’ll certainly be hard to beat the show Gorillaz put on at the Co-Op Live Arena. A miraculous two-hour experience which pieces together the nuance and thrill Albarn has been capable of for decades. This may be the man at his very best. Albarn’s love for these tracks is infectious. It’s hard not to be moved in all the right ways, pushed to this high-octane joy with 19-2000 or the gentler flourish of The Sad God. Gorillaz celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in style, and they sound as contemporary as ever. A deeply moving album, a deeper experience hearing it live. Albarn has never let up in performing with a passion that goes beyond what is expected of an everyday artist rollout. He has committed himself to The Mountain fully, and by the looks of it, high up in the nosebleeds, so too has the crowd. The Mountain tour is a staggering experience, Albarn retreading the emotionally volatile path he threaded through the band’s most recent album is a beautiful experience. As satisfying and subtle in its new, intriguing layers as it is in those nostalgic highs.
