O2 Area, London
Pop’s longest-serving imaginary band fill the reopened venue with deceptive chaos and the delight of feeling part of one thing again
“It’s such a joy to be again,” says Gorillaz’s human consultant, Damon Albarn, addressing a full and bouncing O2 Area. “Hundreds of people communing together. What an exquisite feeling. Thanks.” The gang roar as in the event that they haven’t been to a gig in 18 months.
Who’d have thought that pop’s longest-serving imaginary band – as youthfully bony as once they have been first drawn by artist Jamie Hewlett in 1998 – would make just a little real-life historical past by being the first act to play the reopened O2 Area? Gorillaz and the O2 aren’t natural bedfellows, the former being ramshackle punk/dub/hip-hop futurists and the latter London’s most impersonal venue, but the area is the only place giant sufficient to hold them, in all senses. Outdoors, a big queue snakes round crash obstacles, and that’s just to buy hoodies; inside, every seat is occupied, and the stage itself teems with musicians, special friends and, onscreen, the gurning cartoon Gorillaz: Murdoc, Noodle, Russel and 2D. That is, in each respect, an enormous present.
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