Gorillaz @ Delta Center 10.20.2026

Concert

If you’ve ever played Minecraft, you know there’s two main game modes. There’s Survival, where you have a small, but strict set of rules to survive, and creative, where instead of rules you just have to know really well what it is you’re doing if you want to be good.

Damon Albarn is playing the game of making music in Minecraft’s creative mode. He’s been in creative mode since he teamed up with Jamie Hewlett 28 years ago to form the virtual band, Gorillaz. At this point in 1998, he was already pretty well known thanks to being the frontman of the Manchester-born, Britpop monster band known as Blur. It reached pretty great heights during the 90s, like their famous “beef” with the other Manchester-born band Oasis, or their infamous Nardwuar interview. It was safe to say he already had a pretty solid place in the music scene. But the music scene Blur was in made Albarn a bit bored, as he didn’t love his place in the media as a boyband popstar. So, obviously the next move is to link up with punk illustrator Jamie Hewlett, mostly famous for the British comic Tank Girl, and make a completely virtual band. A weird choice, but this was how Gorillaz came to be. Murdoc, a creepy, reptile-like bassist, wanted to start a band, so he was the brains of the operation. He recruited the singer 2-D more or less by giving him brain damage, and he kidnapped Russel Hobbs, the employee of a record shop who became their drummer. Without a guitarist, Murdoc placed an advert that ended up earning him the guitarist known as Noodle, sent to him in a FedEx Package. BOOM — Gorillaz was formed.

Now that he had a partner to visualize his completely virtual band, he got his version of creative mode. The members were virtual but still felt real in a way, so whatever the members are up to and how they are doing is all up to Albarn and Hewlett. On top of this, using the outreach Albarn had already established, they were able to pretty much collaborate with anyone they wanted to. Maybe one of the most culturally appreciated west coast rappers of the late 90s/2000s, Del the Funky Homosapien, helped out on their breakout hit that was so big it ironically topped any heights Albarn had previously reached. Actor/writer Dennis Hopper, from movies like Waterworld and True Romance, narrated the story near the end of Demon Days. Even someone like the frontman of The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, just effortlessly fits into whatever it is Gorillaz is doing. Albarn used the band as a means to create whatever music he wanted to, which I think is one of the coolest things you could ever do in life.

In 2026, they came back around for the ninth studio album called The Mountain. After losing both their fathers, this album was themed and largely fueled by trips to India that both Albarn and Hewlett went on together after both being touched by grief. The trip must have been pretty eye-opening for them, because this album is one of their most ambitious albums to date, on all fronts. One of the biggest defining factors of their music since its creation is the band’s ability to incorporate other cultures into the music. Like I said, though, this album is ambitious, and from the first song it shows. They brought in classical Indian musicians Ajay Prasanna, Anoushka Shankar, Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash, who all give a beautiful opening melody to the album. They also brought in a team of authentic illustrators for this project as well, constructing an amazing short film to go along with the opening minutes of the album. After beautifully setting the scene, this album takes you on a very colorful, but deep journey through the themes of life, death, reincarnation and the afterlife. So many songs on here have some of the most meaningful lyrics that have been on any Gorillaz album in a while.

Furthermore, the collaborations for this project couldn’t be more fitting for the album considering the themes of death & reincarnation. There are a handful of appearances from people deep in Gorillaz’s past, some tracing back to the very first album, and a lot of the appearances are posthumous. Dennis Hopper, who sadly passed away in 2010, makes a return appearance on the album opener. Proof, a former D12 member who was known as being a close friend of Eminem’s and who passed away in 2004, has a verse on here, which, as a hip-hop fan, is a crazy thing to have on your album, regardless of time or genre. Even posthumous appearances aside, there is some heavy talent on here: IDLES frontman Joe Talbot, the legendary Black Thought, courtesy of The Roots, Yasiin Bey (AKA Mos Def), and more.

When I saw the tour announcement, obviously I was excited to see Gorillaz again, but I was definitely curious how a lot of the songs on The Mountain would translate to a live setting. So many of the standout moments for me on this album were made because it was so crazy to hear certain people have a voice again or to hear music that I just did not expect to hear on a Gorillaz album at all. I had trust, though, because if you haven’t seen Gorillaz live before, you need to! It’s quite a trip, as they have all their music videos playing behind them, sometimes even showing exclusive visuals, which for this band specifically is a lot cooler than most.

Anyways, they opened the show with Ajay Prasanna playing his awesome flute, and as soon as I heard that in combination with the rest of the instruments coming in, I knew this would be a special show. It was great to see them play all of their classic songs. But what really floored me was how truly good all their new stuff was live. I’m not sure if it’s because they put a lot of work into making sure they had the right people on tour to make the songs reach their full potential, or if it was the out-of-this-world visuals they had playing the whole time, but most likely it was a little bit of everything. That would make sense, because only someone who was making a concert in creative mode could put this many things together and have it work as well as it did. Thank you, Gorillaz. —Travis Ockey