Gorillaz stun in star-studded show of lush visuals and borderless music

Released in 2010, Plastic Beach found the cartoon act’s complex lore transposed to a floating island in the Pacific, a supervillain’s lair made up of late capitalist detritus: the stuff that breaks down into particles that turns up in placentas, with no plastic producer yet being held to account. Having made their point about the ersatz, manufactured bands of the 00s by manufacturing their own, Gorillaz’s third act raised environmental alarms.

Tonight, as they play Plastic Beach in full, a lesser-known track, Pirate Jet, doubles down on Albarn’s despair at “the plastic-eating people”, with footage of whales being slaughtered and sharks being finned. He recorded the album’s shrieking seagulls at a dump east of London – not too far from this venue, as the gull flies.

But the record didn’t overlook nuance. Our rubbish often teems with life. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is home to colonies of marine creatures. Plastic Beach was a bittersweet work that tried to imagine a future built on the toxic remains of the present; finding that life often found a way.

Played mostly in order here, it’s testament to Gorillaz’s playful, serious natures, and features several heart-in-mouth moments. Plastic Beach is the third of four live events in the capital in which Gorillaz have re-examined their own artefacts, airing their three early albums to mark 25 years of Albarn’s innovative aural mashups and Jamie “Tank Girl” Hewlett’s visual mischief. A fourth “mystery” gig, yet to occur at the time of writing, holds the promise of new songs. (Reviewers are surplus to requirements.)

All told, it’s a hugely impressive undertaking, especially if you include the terrific, site-specific House of Kong side exhibition – so immersive as to include a caravan that pongs of old socks and overflowing ashtrays, visitors helping push flight cases around, and an unlit stumble through a claustrophobic wardrobe of costumes.

Dozens of musicians range across the four gigs. Naturally, the cartoon visuals are lush, reprising videos and the record’s original live presentation: the Plastic Beach tour was Gorillaz’s first not playing behind screens.

At the centre of it all is the mercurial, workaholic Albarn, tonight dressed in dark cottons, stripy T-shirt and a captain’s hat. (The band are mostly in sailor costumes.) Playing guitar and keyboards, he marshals the three-piece Demon Strings, a four-piece choir, the seven-strong Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and a handful of special guests.

The Clash’s ineffably cool bassist Paul Simonon is on the title track, which is restarted halfway through by Albarn to better nail the “feeling when we start the first note”. The surviving members of De La Soul light up Superfast Jellyfish, which raises an eyebrow at food packaging. Rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon, rapper Bashy and Gruff Rhys have cameos; Snoop Dogg is present in video form, as is UK MC Kano.

From classical overture to encore, the gig is a testament to what can be built out of bits of other things: a bricolage of eclectic, borderless music. It begins with the end of De La Soul’s DJ Maseo’s set, in which he raises a middle finger to “the algorithm”, segues into Plastic Beach’s elegant orchestral intro, takes in the lilting flutes and polyrhythms of the Middle East and ends slightly anticlimactically with a handful of bloopy, retro-futurist tracks that prefigure Gorillaz’s fourth album, The Fall.

In between are Plastic Beach’s standouts. Stylo remains this record’s key takeaway, an irresistible groove anchoring a three-part dialogue between Gorillaz’s two-dimensional singer 2-D (namely, Albarn), Bey and the late Bobby Womack. One of the more emotional aspects to Plastic Beach – and there are quite a few – is how many of its contributors are no longer with us: Lou Reed, Mark E Smith of the Fall, De La Soul’s Trugoy the Dove. Whenever Womack’s voice rings out, a picture of the singer appears on the backdrop to wild cheers. The warm responses to Hewlett’s cartoons of Smith and Reed also tug at the heart.

Some less impactful numbers glide by, while others prove revelatory. On Melancholy Hill is one of Gorillaz’s all-out finest Albarn-sung tracks, but the next tune along, Broken, is ripe for a big reappraisal. Albarn’s tender, soaring vocal invokes David Bowie (“it’s broken, our love”). Albarn holds his arms aloft throughout a lengthy, bravura section from the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. The absence of the album’s third track, White Flag, in its correct place barely hints at what is to come.

Breaking with the album, the lights land on the six-strong London Arab Orchestra (LAO), playing an instrumental piece called Tahmeel Hijaz; the crowd join in with stomps and claps. Albarn stalks the stage waving a huge white flag, taking it down into the photographers’ pit. Nothing is said but everything is clear. Not coincidentally, Albarn’s next live engagement is Brian Eno’s Together for Palestine benefit gig on 17 September. This white flag, with no red on it, speaks to the moment nationally too: all those Saint George’s crosses on roundabouts, intimidatory pennants halfway up lamp-posts.

The LAO remain on board for White Flag itself, playing eastern Mediterranean filigree alongside the Demon Strings. Naturally, Albarn decided to pair these sounds with verses from UK rappers Bashy and Kano.

The white flag of peace flutters over Gorillaz’s island, as far away from what passes for civilisation as it is possible to get. The island is an abomination, but it is also a haven. Or, as Kano’s verse has it: “no feds, no stress, no rent, no superficial shit”. Albarn faces off with Bashy centrestage. “We come in peace!” they yell, gleefully, at each other.