Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn

This was my fourth time seeing Damon Albarn in three months, and I’m far from sick of it — of course, this is partially attributable to him being one of my favorite artists, but also because I’ve been able to see the way he began playing new material from Everyday Robots before anyone had heard the thing or knew how to react to the songs, and the point he’s arrived at, where he’s weaving it far more effectively amongst other work spanning his career. Setlist-wise, this show wasn’t all that different from Albarn’s Irving Plaza show I included in last week’s Governor’s Ball recaps, or from the Fader Fort headlining set during SXSW. Like at Irving Plaza, Albarn displayed that he’s learned a way to flesh out the Everyday Robots songs so that they function better in a festival setting. And, thankfully, like at Fader Fort, he’s not averse to dropping in some crowd-pleasers, as a more stubborn person in his position (two beloved bands under his belt, and yet trying to promote a predominantly low-key new solo album that’s tricky to reproduce live in the right way) might be tempted to be. This meant we got both “Feel Good, Inc.” with De La Soul coming out, as well as “Clint Eastwood” with Del the Funky Homosapien (with whom Albarn had never actually played the song live until that same Fader Fort set in March). The special one for me this time around was when Albarn brought out the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble for a version of “Broken” (from Gorillaz’ 2010 release Plastic Beach), a song he’s only played a few times on his solo tour. He seemed to enjoy it, too, giving the horn players an extended middle section to do their thing over, while he sat on the drum riser, had a beer, and nodded his head along.