GIG NUMBER SEVENTY-NINE
Who
On the day itself Manchester was pretty wet (despite the reputation, I've never noticed it raining that often) and I was shocked to note that the doors didn't open until 8pm, which meant more hanging around the venue eating a McFlurry before getting in. We'd smuggled in some sweets to get around the typical extortion taking place inside but I still permitted myself to buy a program which was numbered 36 out of 3500. It had a listing of the songs in the main set (i.e. the running order of Demon Days) plus a few pretty shots of the band, but it was a pretty sparse memento. Being a snobby venue, there were dickhead ushers rather than the usual dickhead bouncers who were searching bags then trying to make us put them in the cloakroom so we just turned the other way and took them into the arena regardless. First though we had to hang around in the crowded foyer until the ushers let us in. And is this what posh people want on a night out? We were quite far back on the lower level and the view was restricted by the upper balcony which shaved off the top of the video screen. I'd got the mid-priced ticket but as I'd already spent a fortune I thought I should just have gone the whole hog and got the very expensive seats!
The seats were also uncomfortable so it came as some comfort that when everyone else took their seats in front I was still able to see the stage. There were also a few seats which were empty for the whole night! There was a bit of a wait and no support, but one nice thing was having sensibly quiet music so you could still hold a conversation, and when that quiet music includes the Psycho theme you're onto something special! The lights then went down and there were a few introductory jokes from the "band" conveyed on the PA before a Looney Tunes cartoon started! It was a very entertaining Daffy Duck affair featuring a very strong alcoholic drink (I won't forget the ice cubes sprouting legs and jumping out of it!) which fitted in with the Gorillaz spirit and was more entertaining than yet another no-name support. And then the music started and the band made an entrance. The stage set-up had a Jools Holland vibe featuring bright panels of changing colours accompanying the video screen. I counted around 24 people on stage (excluding guests!) and it took a while to spot Damon towards the back tinkering away at his piano. There was a small choir (the Manchester Community Choir) and orchestra, plus the guy from Tender. According to the programme, there was also Simon Tong and Simon Jones who are two of the guys from The Verve. One frustrating thing though is that Gorillaz do not actually seem to exist. I believe 2D and Murdoc were represented by real people but I was disappointed I couldn't see Noodle and I had always imagined that there would be four people who correspond to the cartoon characters. Oh well.
The set started with the cool introductory music and was basically a faithful rendition of the album. Last Living Souls was good, but Kids With Guns was even better. Neneh Cherry was the first guest and having these stars wheeled out in front of us was nice, but they were onstage for such a short time and in such a regimented fashion to fit in with the album that the strength of the line-up didn't quite sink in. Dirty Harry was particularly powerful, featuring a very large choir of kids from a local school directed by the guy from Tender. Some of the kids got over-excited and did some dancing towards the front, and this was the best guest slot so far. Feel Good Inc. remains a good single but is very much in the shadow of Dare, and was most memorable for a maniac charging towards the stage to be restrained by the ushers! The whole show was loud, excellently played and featured fantastic lighting and a video screen full of Gorillaz images I can't even pretend to remember. There was little I could fault on the visual side.
El Mañana was a fairly dull tune, highlighting that the album as a whole isn't as strong as some of Blur's efforts. It was most notable for featuring Noodle being drawn "live" on the video screen. Every Planet We Reach Is Dead featured Ike Turner who was a little guy who came on, waved a lot and tinkered at a piano for a bit, whereas November Has Come featured MF Doom (a rapper with a cool metallic mask) on the video screen. All Alone featured Roots Manuva and Martina Topley Bird apparently, but by now the volume of guests had become quite overwhelming. White Light was particularly loud and exciting, but the undisputed highlight of the night followed in Dare. Shaun Ryder took to the stage, got through his vocal parts fairly smoothly, and wriggled his booty at us! The whole crowd went "yes!" and got to their feet to clap along in excitement. Then followed the most frustrating part of the night as the dickhead ushers came round and screamed at everyone to sit down again, and wouldn't leave us alone until we had. Anyone would think that wanting to stand up and clap a bit constituted incitement to riot, but the only thing that could provoke violence and ill feeling was their obsession with ensuring we were sitting down and not showing any outward signs of enjoyment or participation, and I'm sure most members of the audience just wanted to punch the dicks. But this was such an exciting moment and watching the ushers hysterically trying to quell the enjoyment was funny in a way.
The show should then have come alive and become more than a technically perfect run-through of the album. Next track was Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head, which sadly didn't feature Dennis Hopper live. The main set passed with nothing else of note. For the encore Damon came out of hiding into the limelight at the front to applause. The next tracks were Latin Simone, which featured a video of Ibrahim Ferrer who had recently died, and also Hong Kong from the Warchild compilation. This was the point where the night could have become classic and passed into legend... The band left the stage again. I looked at my watch, observed it was around 10pm and wandered how many tracks from the debut album they were going to climax with. But the lights went up, and the show was over! The crowd all bolted to the exit, and there was no massive applause for the end of the show, as a proper ending had been robbed from us and we all seemed to walk outside in shock into the rain! And this is where the show failed. Demon Days is a good album, but Gorillaz just can't get away with perhaps the earliest finish of all time after fobbing us off with a pitiful encore of two songs nobody wanted. Everything we got was quite nice, but there wasn't enough of it, and a triumphant ending of hits was desperately called for. My research confirms that the band didn't learn their lesson and change their set on the other four nights, so at least I didn't miss out. Damon may have expressed his satisfaction at the shows, but I'm sure most of the audience must have felt short changed by this failed opportunity. The Demon Days tour it may have been called, but is a few crowd-pleasing hits at the end of a desperately short show really too much to ask? They're not quite dare yet.
Mark: 8.0/10
Gorillaz
Where
Manchester Opera House
When
1st November 2005
Price
£28.00
Who with
Alex
Position
Seated, towards the back
Comments
It was nice to see Gorillaz announcing Manchester as the place for these special shows, as opposed to yet another exclusive for London! Obviously I took note of Gorillaz because of Blur but the band seemed to have notched up a few good songs, especially M1 A1 which samples the excellent Day Of The Dead, and it took little time for me to decide that this was unmissable. Billed as the Demon Days Live Tour which had something to do with the Manchester International Festival, Gorillaz announced five dates and I decided that the first night would be the most memorable and also most convenient. I was lucky because everyone else went straight for the Friday and Saturday night when booking. I got two tickets online and was shocked to see I'd got them on my first attempt, then watched as the dates sold out in no time at all! Finally a lucky break, so I borrowed the Demon Days album to give myself the knowledge needed to enjoy the concert and waited for the show to draw near.
Setlist
Intro
Last Living Souls
Kids With Guns
O Green World
Dirty Harry
Feel Good Inc.
El Mañana
Every Planet We Reach Is Dead
November Has Come
All Alone
White Light
Dare
Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head
Don't Get Lost In Heaven
Demon Days
Latin Simone
Hong Kong
