Thighs Wide Shut

Gorillaz
Merriweather Post Pavilion
July 17th

How lucky are we to be alive (and well) in a day and age where we get to over-experience the genius of Damon Albarn – our most magnificent modern music maestro, master of majestic melodies in multiple multitudes?

I only discovered this man in 1998, after a former thigh mistress imparted her Blur wisdom on me.  I felt so behind (they were already on their 5th album), and dumb for being so behind on Dan Abnormal, but once bitten, 9ever smitten

Since then, it’s been nothing but Damon Albarn for me, in any shape or form, and there have certainly been a lot of forms.  Blur is what launched him into the stratosphere (WOO-WHO!!), but in their long 21st century hiatus, his idle hands were hardly anything but.  There was a fantastic teaming with Clash bassist Paul Simonon and Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen – The Good, The Bad, The Queen, another side project with Allen and RHCP’s Flea - Rocket Juice & The Moon, a (not so amazing considering how amazing he is) solo album – Everyday Robots, and other lil things here and there, but the one project that seems to capture his greatness greater than all the rest of the greatness (yes, even more than Blur!) has been Gorillaz

Now four brilliant albums deep, the Gorillaz is not only Albarn’s most tremendous accomplishment to date, but they may in fact be the best music act going IN THE WORLD!!!  I may be biased, but I am not wrong.  The Gorillaz’ albums act as a mix tape carnival of what the world sounds like, well, at least to Damon.  And we’re all ears!! He supplies the basis, and brings on a bunch of guest stars – legends, ones in the making, and people you have zero awarness of – and blends it into the best cocktail that you want to rub your cock to

On the Gorillaz’ latest go around – Humanz – it’s not more of the same – but even more insane!!!!  And when it came alive at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland (where I haven’t seen a show since 1997, when I caught the Wu-Tang Clan open for Rage Against The Machine… and then left after the Clan finished their set!), it was even more marvelous live, in the flesh… and on tape!  

Tape! as in pre-recorded video, for the contributors who couldn’t join the Gorillaz on this tour.  And in the past, that was part of the problem of their ability to tour.  The first album had few guest stars, but when their all-star studded second, Demon Days, dropped, they weren’t really into the pre-tapping stuff, and so they only staged concerts in 2 cities, for 10 shows in total (I saw 2 of them!).  That was it!  Everyone else outside of Manchester England and New York City had to suck it!  And that really sucks.  People deserved to see Demon Days toured… even if, lets say, Ike Turner and Dennis Hopper couldn’t make it to every stop (although they did film one of the shows for all to see)

But such things don’t stop the Gorillaz now.  It’s all systems go, even if some of the guest stars can’t go with them. So while Gorillaz newbies like Vince Staples, Danny Brown, Peven Everett, Jamie Principle and Pusha T (his 1st appearance on the tour) were able to join this Merriweather date, we had to make do with a pre-recorded Mavis Staples and a bunch of others.  We didn’t get De La Soul, live OR recorded, and so we didn’t get soulful De La/Gorillaz tracks, and that’s OK, cause everything we did get was amazing (although I really would have loved to have heard ‘She’s My Collar’ and ‘Charger’, which were played at other stops), and we always get Damon Albarn at every show, and he gives us his all, and all of him is all I truly need (this marks the 11th concert I’ve seen of him in some form or another.  I look forward to the next 11)

Guess if I want it all(barn), I’ll just have to quit all my jobs and follow Damon everywhere he goes.  I bet he even makes sweet music on the toilet.  Too be honest, I’d love to find out.  I’d even do the wiping!

Setlist РM1 A1 / Ascension (with Vince Staples) / Last Living Souls / Saturnz Barz / Tomorrow Comes Today / Rhinestone Eyes / Sleeping Powder / 19/2000 / El Ma̱ana / On Melancholy Hill / Busted and Blue / Let Me Out (with Pusha T) / Submission (with Danny Brown) / Strobelite (with Peven Everett) / Andromeda / Sex Murder Party (with Jamie Principle) / DARE / We Got the Power

Encore – Stylo (with Peven Everett) / Kids With Guns / Clint Eastwood (with Vince Staples) / Don’t Get Lost in Heaven / Demon Days

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