DAMON ALBARN – THE WEDGEWOOD ROOMS, PORTSMOUTH 31st May 2014

Tonight was always going to be a very special show with the Wedge providing their biggest festival warm up of the year, so when Blur/Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn appeared on stage all suited and booted the sold out crowd knew they were in for a treat.

Opening with “Lonely Press Play” from his debut solo album, Damon Albarn started the set in a slightly melancholy fashion but immediately captivated the audience with the second and title track from the same release in “Everyday Robots” with its 1940’s samples and from there on things just got even better.

The first of several Gorillaz tracks followed in “Tomorrow Comes Today” whilst another one of Albarns’ projects from the Good, the Bad and the Queen also had a couple of songs aired along with the added bonus of “Poison” from the much overlooked Rocket Juice & the Moon album, showing that Damon Albarn has a varied back catalogue to pick and choose from making for a great set-list.

It wasn’t just the diversity in songs but Damon also showed he’s very much a composer, the artist behind the music, as where at times he took centre stage on vocals he also performed from behind the piano as well as picking up the guitar and melodica for the odd tune here and there.

As the man himself had to remind us though, this officially being a low-key warm up show meant they were also able to experiment in front of a more intimate crowd and as such we were treated to a couple of numbers that had yet to be played live elsewhere, but with the exception of one false start the performance was pretty faultless beginning to end.

It wouldn’t be possible however to get away without playing any tracks from his original band, so as Damon sat back behind the piano one last time for the beautiful “Out of Time” from Blurs “Think Tank” album before bringing the main set to a more energetic climax in “All Your Life” it was hard to imagine what the encore would bring…

So introduce then an MC that the band had only met the night before to provide guest vocals on the Gorillaz hit “Clint Eastwood”, it was an unexpected addition and has to be mentioned the MC absolutely nailed it – however if that wasn’t enough, a six piece choir then appeared on stage.

Even if the new album has a number of more chilled out moments the live renditions of “Mr Tembo” and “Heavy Seas of Love” with the additional live vocals ended the concert on a high before another Blur song in “This is a Low” finally brought the night to a close.

There are times when you’re just at a gig and there are times when you’re part of an occasion, this was certainly the latter and a concert that definitely lived up to all the hype and it was an honour to have been a part of such a great moment in the Wedgewood Rooms long and wonderful history.