SHOW PATROL: GORILLAZ IN OUR MIDST
Gorillaz
The Apollo Theater
Thursday, April 6


The first big surprise of the night was waiting for us when we got out of the A-train station at 125th street: Everywhere we looked, there was a horde of befuddled-looking honkies wandering around Harlem. Not since Hall & Oates recorded Live at the Apollo has this theater been invaded by so many whitebred dudes and their dates. The second surprise was inside the theater itself. It’s amazingly small, which just reinforces how much it must hurt when someone gets tossed on their ass on amateur night; the chances are pretty good that the person who booed you the most is sitting only two rows behind.

In town for just five nights, the Gorillaz crew tried to make the most of this setting: A half-dozen or so multi-colored video screens lined the stage, which was overstuffed with musicians (shadowy Gorillaz mastermind Damon Albarn stayed in the back.) On the balcony, two lewd, oversized puppets opened the show by cracking a few jokes for the audience, which included real-life lewd oversized puppets Kate Moss and Harvey Weinstein. It was the only touch of humor in the whole show, which is a shame, since if there’s one thing Gorillaz needs, it’s a bit of levity; they may be cartoons, but with all their apocalyptic imagery, they’re not that cartoonish.

The music was just as advertised: Demon Days Live. No "Clint Eastwood”—just the new album, front-to-back, with plenty of paraded-out guests. A children’s choir pop-locked and chanted during a joyous “Dirty Harry,” De La Soul cackled for “Feel Good Inc.,” and Ike Turner, looking like he’s just slapped a bedazzler, played a completely nonsensical piano solo (between Ike and fellow guest stars like Dennis Hopper and the Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder, there must have been one helluva long backstage confab about the merits of peyote on one's eyelids).

Even Albarn popped up, reluctantly, at the end, taking the vocals on the languid B-side “Hong Kong.” You almost wanted to bum-rush the stage and tell him it was okay to have fun, but it probably wouldn’t have done any good; Gorillaz is a larky project he has to take very seriously, and its success seems to embarrass him. For that one moment, he looked like the most befuddled honky of them all.