Gorillaz *LIVE* Nov 3rd 2005

November 15, 2005 4:27 PM

Gorillaz perform "Feel Good Inc" live at the MTV Europe Music Awards, using smoke and mirrors to neat effect. I wish the the band members weren't all smacked out in suitable rock fashion, though.
posted by elphTeq (64 comments total)

Awesome. That is all.
posted by Milliken at 4:41 PM on November 15, 2005

brilliant, has to be seen to be believed.
posted by kurtrudder at 4:42 PM on November 15, 2005

That is really strange.

Idoru!
posted by craniac at 4:45 PM on November 15, 2005

more on how it was done here

Very impressive. Basically, they did it using the same trick used in the haunted mansion at Disneyland I think.
posted by kosher_jenny at 4:47 PM on November 15, 2005

That was incredible. Er... how did they do it?
posted by arcticwoman at 4:51 PM on November 15, 2005

Uh, thanks Jenny.
posted by arcticwoman at 4:52 PM on November 15, 2005

Mostly ok, but the two black guys were pathetically unrealistic.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:59 PM on November 15, 2005

Thanks for linking to that, I'd heard they were gonna do that and it actually looked cooler than I'd imagined!

That world tour is gonna be off tha hook.
posted by wigu at 5:00 PM on November 15, 2005

Derail: I was going to buy that CD, but then I read that the rest of it is NOTHING like Feel Good, Inc., and is pretentious, noisy experimental stuff. True?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:01 PM on November 15, 2005

Um, piracy?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:05 PM on November 15, 2005

I found this pretty underwhelming. I remember playing an amazing (for the time) cowboy hologram game back in 1990, I'd expect things to be a bit better now. The technology is there, it was lazily used.
posted by fire&wings at 5:07 PM on November 15, 2005

the rest of it is NOTHING like Feel Good, Inc., and is pretentious, noisy experimental stuff.

No, a good chunk of it is pretentious noisy experimental stuff that's a lot like Feel Good Inc.

That's not helpful. If you like Feel Good Inc, there's plenty other stuff you will like on there. There's also probably some stuff you won't like. But it's nothing radically divergent from the first album or Feel Good, IMHO.
posted by freebird at 5:09 PM on November 15, 2005

Pretty amazing stuff. They look bad as CG, though.
posted by deafmute at 5:11 PM on November 15, 2005

The version of that track that I've heard so many times is actually the Stanton Warriors remix - it is so much better than this (original) version.
posted by jeffmik at 5:12 PM on November 15, 2005

even in the fantasy world the brothas are the only ones that have to do the real work.

sheeeeeet.
posted by tsarfan at 5:14 PM on November 15, 2005

their website, http://www.gorillaz.com/ is pretty cool.
posted by Maishe at 5:18 PM on November 15, 2005

The kids from Dark Crystal can rock pretty fucking hard.
posted by iron chef morimoto at 5:19 PM on November 15, 2005

Gorillaz
posted by Maishe at 5:19 PM on November 15, 2005

Very cool!!
posted by inconsequentialist at 5:32 PM on November 15, 2005

This is cool! (They could have done a better job with the lip-synching, though.)
posted by Drexen at 5:33 PM on November 15, 2005

a good chunk of it is pretentious noisy experimental stuff

Might have to check it out then. I just thought they were some rock/hiphop thing.
posted by melt away at 5:35 PM on November 15, 2005

They need something to distract you from the horrible music. I'd never heard them before. Ick.
posted by dobbs at 5:36 PM on November 15, 2005

I was going to buy that CD, but then I read that the rest of it is NOTHING like Feel Good, Inc., and is pretentious, noisy experimental stuff. True?

Nope. It's all quite "approachable" dance/pop music.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:50 PM on November 15, 2005

No accounting for taste, I suppose. I introduced it to a friend (pop music fan) who absolutely loved it; others say there are only 3 good songs; ... and then there's dobbs.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:51 PM on November 15, 2005

Pretty cool.

(Why is apparently hosted by Mahir?)
posted by kalimac at 5:52 PM on November 15, 2005

"Feel Good Inc" is easily one of my favorite songs of the year... which is why I wish i didn't feel rather underwhelmed by the performance. Ah well.
posted by scody at 6:13 PM on November 15, 2005

Yeah, the lip syncing is pretty bad, but I was impressed by the way they used light maps of the stage in the rendering process. You could see the characters move in and out of real shadows. Now if they only had more interaction with real people on stage ...
posted by xthlc at 6:13 PM on November 15, 2005

Why is apparently hosted by Mahir?

I thought it was Borat (Ali G), but you might be right.
posted by mrgrimm at 6:29 PM on November 15, 2005

The technology is kind of neat, but I find the whole animated band schtick silly and annoying.
posted by teece at 6:30 PM on November 15, 2005

Isnt' Gorillaz just Damon Albarn (n real life) in collaboration with a vareity of artists (also in real life)?

Nice to see the real De La Soul on stage. Or so it appeared from the poor video.
posted by juiceCake at 6:32 PM on November 15, 2005

iron chef morimoto: heeheehee!
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 6:35 PM on November 15, 2005

I'm the only one liking the FGI tune but disliking all the cartoon concept ? Humans goddamit, humans.
posted by elpapacito at 6:43 PM on November 15, 2005

Gorillaz are Damon Albarn of Blur, former Talking Heads Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, mixmaster Kid Koala and others; the band's look was created by 'Tank Girl' artist Jamie Hewlett.
posted by kurtrudder at 6:57 PM on November 15, 2005

Almost right ...

Gorillaz are Damon Albarn (2-D), Miho Hattori of Cibo Matto (Noodle), Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (Russell) and Jamie Hewitt (Murdoc). Of course, there are a truckload of guest stars and assorted help (including former members of Tom Tom Club) -- particularly since I don't think Hewitt actually plays bass, but the virtual band is that four-piece set.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:04 PM on November 15, 2005

Kid Koala is someone worth checking out. He is a mad turntablist from Canada, i saw him do an excellent live set at the Melbourne Big Day Out earlier this year.
posted by kurtrudder at 7:05 PM on November 15, 2005

Hewlett.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:15 PM on November 15, 2005

yeah you better correct yourself....being pedantic seems to be a passion for some around here.
posted by kurtrudder at 7:20 PM on November 15, 2005

Many fans have simply assumed that the guest artists in the liner notes of the first album complete the band. Usually the unknowledgable matchup cites Albarn as 2D, Hewlett or Dan "The Automator" Nakamura as Murdoc, former Cibo Matto vocalist Miho Hatori as Noodle, and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien of Deltron 3030 as Russel. This is however false, and so is any other attempt to determine each cartoon band member's "real world" equal. In fact, the only permanent 'member' behind the music happens to be Albarn, while all artwork and music videos are created by Zombie Flesh Eaters (Hewlett's own company) and Passion Pictures (animators including Pete Candeland and 2000AD artist Rufus Dayglo).

For example, there are several people who make up the identity of "Noodle", including: Miho Hatori, who provided singing vocals for Noodle on the first album; Haruka Kuroda, an actress who provides Noodle's speaking voice; Rosie Wilson, who performs Noodle's lead vocal in "DARE"; or Simon Katz, Simon Tong, and Damon Albarn himself, who have all played guitar for Gorillaz at some point.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:39 PM on November 15, 2005

Sorry, that was quoting from Wikipedia. Don't blame me for the condecending tone.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:40 PM on November 15, 2005

Weymouth, Albarn, Frantz, Del et al give their own great performances instead of watching their lame cartoon incarnations do their thing.
I really loved the first album and the second was alright, I guess. But what the hell happened to Dan the Automator? Seems to me he was the reason the first disc worked so well. No offense to DangerMouse but Dan is a much better producer.
posted by Evstar at 7:45 PM on November 15, 2005

Thanks Pretty_Generic. I had thought that this was the case.

As for a subjective take on the newer disc itself. Entirely not pretentious and very enjoyable. Much better than the first imho.
posted by juiceCake at 7:49 PM on November 15, 2005

Eh, what was I was trying to say was that I'd rather see all of those artists perform live than watch the ugly holograms on-stage.
posted by Evstar at 7:49 PM on November 15, 2005

Actually, there was just a massive event with all 80 artists performing live over 5 nights in Manchester. For obvious reasons, it will never happen again.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:56 PM on November 15, 2005

I saw this when they replayed it on MTV2 in the US. It was a neat concept but I wasn't very impressed watching it on TV. It just looked like big projected video, like every other act uses.
posted by smackfu at 8:02 PM on November 15, 2005

Then I am so sorry I couldn't have been there, peege.

It would be cool if they tried just swapping in all of those musicians for shows whenever convenient. Sort of like Broken Social Scene has been doing. Every time I see them they play a lot of the same material with vastly different lineups and they're always exciting shows. I guess this doesn't really fit Albarn's vision, or something.
posted by Evstar at 8:04 PM on November 15, 2005

When they play live it's the band behind a screen and animations on the screen, like this, but probably without the smoke and mirrors. It will be so much cooler when real-time rendering is powerful enough that this can be done with motion capture so that it's really like a performance.
posted by abcde at 8:25 PM on November 15, 2005

Also it's not usually prerecorded like this, of course.
posted by abcde at 8:29 PM on November 15, 2005

That is really strange.

Is it really so strange?
posted by shoepal at 8:30 PM on November 15, 2005

Well i thought it was nifty. Technology is swell.
posted by quin at 8:53 PM on November 15, 2005

"It will be so much cooler when real-time rendering is powerful enough that this can be done with motion capture so that it's really like a performance."

The Jim Henson Studio and a company called Xtrackrz (go to their download section) is doing some really interesting work exactly along those lines. The bugs aren't perfectly worked out yet, but we're talking weeks not years before we'll see a mo-capped live CG performance, if it isn't being done already.
posted by ga$money at 10:39 PM on November 15, 2005

Presented by Borat. aka Ali G.
Who said (of Madonna) "It was very brave of MTV to start the show with a transvestite."
posted by seanyboy at 12:15 AM on November 16, 2005

Ha, Ha.
posted by seanyboy at 12:21 AM on November 16, 2005

ga$money: Well, it's obviously physically possible currently, but the graphics would be inadequate. It certainly wouldn't like like this performance did.
posted by abcde at 12:46 AM on November 16, 2005

abcde: While I'm not sure exactly what you mean by saying the graphics would be inadequate (since that covers a wide range of issues), I agree that it wouldn't look like this. Based on some test demos I shot with the Henson/Xtrackrz crew about a year ago, they weren't _quite_ ready to deliver this kind of detailed live performance, but they were very close. Interestingly, for us, most of the problem was not from the animation processing speed or the sophistication of our models, but on the limitations of motion capture to deal with complicated movements between characters without losing track of the nodes. But I would be curious to see what the state of the technology is now; a year is a long time in this field. I would also be very curious to know how much of the Gorillaz performance was canned and how much was live (other than De La Soul, of course).
posted by ga$money at 1:40 AM on November 16, 2005

Thanks for the background info Pretty_Generic, kurtrudder and grabbingsand.

It was only a couple of months ago that I caught the Feel Good, Inc video on MTV while channel-flipping through that MTV/VH1/MTV2 listings.

And was wondering why it was such an infectious earworm. Seriously. It was slowly driving me insane. "What the fuck? MTV? Melody, groove and funk? MTV!? It's not angry, violent gangster rap, diabetic sugar-pop or shitty formulaic angst rock! On MTV!?!"

I was feeling very, very guilty, or intrigued, or simply confused as hell. But with a rotating guest artist list like that I don't have to be confused or guilty any more.
posted by loquacious at 2:19 AM on November 16, 2005

Cartoon alter egos work great in music videos (the first gorillaz music video for Clint Eastwood was awesome) but very poorly live. The whole point of seeing a band live is to see them... live. If I wanted to watch cartoons I would have stayed at home. This seems like a wierd Damon Albarn idea that sounded great when he was getting stoned and talking it over with his buds and turned out to be really lame.
posted by sophist at 3:15 AM on November 16, 2005

Maybe if they got really good costumes instead?
posted by sophist at 3:16 AM on November 16, 2005

Meh. Maybe it's my computer, but it just looks like it was shot onto a projector screen.

And the audience's faux enthusiasm detracts from the illusion.
posted by Alt F4 at 3:24 AM on November 16, 2005

It was only a couple of months ago that I caught the Feel Good, Inc video on MTV while channel-flipping through that MTV/VH1/MTV2 listings

Waitaminute? There's music on MTV again?

I call shenanigans.
posted by eriko at 5:35 AM on November 16, 2005

If I'm reading right this is done using pre-recorded CG & mirrors rather than being a live CG performance?

Anyone who ever saw Frankie the Robot (see small pic on this page), an interactive robot DJ that was controlled both musically & visually by a live DJ, might feel slightly wistful for what could have been...
posted by i_cola at 5:56 AM on November 16, 2005

Evstar, Pretty_Generic: The Manchester Opera House event was actually recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio 1. They did have a Realplayer stream of this (audio or 'visuals' only, rather than the musicians, unfortunately) on their website. I'm not sure if it's totally offline or just down for the moment, but either way there are some photos of the event there.
posted by flameproof at 7:05 AM on November 16, 2005

I love how cellphone cameras are the new lighters...
posted by togdon at 7:45 AM on November 16, 2005

See Pepper's Ghost and The Ghostly Grand Ballroom for more on the technique.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:08 AM on November 16, 2005

ga$money: Let's take the simple measure of graphics quality and go with polygon count. I doubt you could achieve that level in real time.
posted by abcde at 12:00 AM on November 17, 2005