Gorillaz live at Scala, London
22 March 2001
Reviewed by Telegraph

Who needs humans, when you've got Gorillaz?

HOW on earth were they going to do it? That was the question that everybody was asking about the first and only "live" performance of Damon Albarn's great experiment, a manufactured band more two-dimensional than Westlife.

The Gorillaz, four space-age ciphers named Murdoc, 2D, Russel and Noodle, are cartoons, thus making a real live appearance extremely unlikely. So the Scala, a former cinema in King's Cross, was transformed back into a cinema as the expectant crowd wedged themselves in front of a giant screen.

The music, a heroic clash of guitar pop, hip hop and dub reggae, kicked off as the characters floated towards us from a tiny point in the centre of the screen. There was clearly a three-dimensional band somewhere, but for now there was no sign of it. "Show yourselves!" yelled one fan, clearly after some reality.

Blur singer Albarn has written the Gorillaz music with the help of hip hop producer Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, who has a taste for this type of thing. His last project was a rap collective called Deltron 3030, who supposedly lived in - yes - the year 3030. The warped, glass-eyed cartoons are drawn by Jamie Hewlett, creator of Tank Girl.

Albarn in particular seemed to relish the opportunity to escape the baggage that comes with Blur and to let his imagination loose. He raised his vocals into a twisted falsetto, enjoying being able to hide behind a blue-haired front man.

Much of the animation was not far removed from the elaborate backdrops seen previously at gigs by the Chemical Brothers or Orbital, except here it was given prime position. Gorillaz raised good questions about what we expect from a concert - who wants to look at ugly blokes playing guitars anyway?

However, the biggest cheer came when a sign of human life appeared. What was clearly Albarn's head and baseball cap was suddenly silhouetted in the centre of a bright Japanese-style sun, confirming that he wasn't sitting at home with his pipe and slippers, laughing at our susceptibility to his postmodern pranks.

The rest of the gig resembled a shadow puppet show, with the real Gorillaz throwing shapes behind their cartoon counterparts. When the hit single Clint Eastwood was performed, the crowd became even more animated. After this resounding success, we can expect Mickey Mouse to be forming a punk band any time soon.