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Madonna Kills Gorillaz 3D
After a killer set at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival earlier this month, Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz are casting an eye toward a full-blown U.S. tour. But fans looking forward to seeing 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel are in for a disappointment – courtesy of The Material Girl.
Albarn and Gorillaz co-creator, comic book artist and designer Jamie Hewlett sat down with MTV News yesterday to dish on their plans to hit the road in the States.
“We’re coming back, going to play all around America, if they want us, of course,” Albarn joked.
And then the duo revealed that there would be no holograms of their cartoon alter egos on the tour, despite long fulminating plans to take the technology on the road, because of this performance at the 2006 Grammy Awards.
“You can’t at this point, do holograms. … This is what happened at the Grammys,” Albarn explained to MTV. “We opened the Grammys – on television it looked great – but we had an invisible film pulled across our stage, and you project onto that, and put smoke behind it – it’s a Victorian technology, actually.
“So Madonna manages to come and gate-crash our idea, as people like Madonna do, because that’s why they’re so deep. … She gate-crashed our idea, so we couldn’t play with any bass or any sound, because it would vibrate [the film] so it was really quiet.
“So we open the Grammys, but no one could hear us, in this huge, great arena, and we were crestfallen at that moment. And I’m trying to get Bono to move, because his huge, great Stetson is obscuring my view. And then our song stops, and she appears on the other side of the stage, with her inflated-ABBA riff, at full volume, and the place just goes insane. And at [that] point, I just thought, ‘You know what? Sometimes, just keep it simple.’”
Whew. Don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted just reading that. Do you get the feeling that he’s been nursing that rant for some time now?
So, long story short, no holograms on the Gorillaz tour, just the same kind of kick-ass live performance the lucky people at Coachella were treated to.
There’s no official word yet on when the band will be arriving on this side of the pond, but you can rest assured Pollstar will let you know as soon as there is.
In the meantime, here’s the awesome video for “Stylo,” the first single off the new Gorillaz album Plastic Beach.