You might remember Plastic Beach, the Gorillaz album that gave classic hits such as ‘Stylo’, ‘On Melancholy Hill’, and ‘Superfast Jellyfish’. It was a phenomenal album that spawned some amazing shows as well. But Friday night saw Gorillaz perform one cut from the album for the first time since 2010, much to the delight of thousands of eager fans.
Playing at San Francisco’s Outside Lands festival on Friday night, Damon Albarn and co. gave an amazing set that consisted of 26 tracks, featuring selections from all of the group’s albums, as well as the previously unreleased track ‘Sleeping Powder’, which made its appearance back in June. But the big event of the night came from the performance of ‘Empire Ants’, which hasn’t been played since Gorillaz wrapped up their Plastic Beach tour in Auckland, back in 2010.
Joining the group onstage was a surprise guest, by way of Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano, who had played on the same stage only an hour earlier, and was a featured vocalist on the original track. Standing side of stage as the opening notes of the song rang out, Nagano soon joined the group for an amazing, hypnotic performance of the track, proving that seven years was far too long for it to make another appearance in their set.
Check out the performance of ‘Empire Ants’ below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPLoRBGZuM8
