On tour with Gorillaz - The Mountain Tour

Since the *cough* pandemic *cough*, I haven’t really been 'on tour' with an artist as such.

Partly because I’ve got three young kids now and don’t massively fancy disappearing for months at a time… and partly because festival season and headline shows tend to fill my diary in a way that makes touring hard to squeeze in.

So when an email landed asking if I fancied joining Gorillaz around the UK for a couple of weeks, it was a pretty easy yes. Time to dust off the touring photographer part of my brain again.

I’m incredibly lucky that these days I get brought in to shoot a lot of what I jokingly call 'the big London show' for amazing artists, often with additional production compared to the rest of the tour. But there’s always that little part of your brain going “…ahhh, if only I could’ve been over there for that moment.” or “I wish I’d tried that on a wider lens.”

Touring lets you chase those thoughts a bit. You get another shot at things. Sometimes moments repeat, sometimes they completely don’t, and you’ve got to stay switched on because people's favourite photos are rarely to be found on the set list.

Gorillaz are such a unique band to photograph because it’s not just about documenting musicians on a stage. The visual identity is such a huge part of it all.

2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle and Russel Hobbs are every bit as important as Damon Albarn and the live band standing underneath them. The shows are layered with Jamie Hewlett's animations alongside Swear Studio and Pixelmappers' lighting and visuals, so there’s constantly something evolving around you.

Every night the crowds were treated to a revolving selection of guests too, including Joe Talbot (IDLES), Bootie Brown, Posdnuos (De La Soul), Kara Jackson, Yasiin Bey, Omar Souleyman, Sweetie Irie and Michelle Ndegwa, turning up across the run.

Over the tour I covered shows at Co-op Live Manchester, bp pulse LIVE Birmingham, Motorpoint Arena Nottingham, M&S Bank Arena Liverpool, SSE Arena Belfast and 3Arena Dublin.

Some highlights:

Trying to predict when Damon was about to launch himself into the crowd and whether I could get there before the entire audience did. Getting to know more of the band and crew during Damon’s birthday on night three. Capturing The Shadowy Light from on stage in Dublin. And honestly, just being around such a friendly and welcoming touring crew the whole time.

I really enjoyed flexing those touring photographer muscles again, and hopefully another opportunity will arise soon. Despite the long travel days and quick turnaround late-night edits, it scratches a creative itch in exactly the kind of environment I love working in.

Roll on Tottenham Stadium in the summer! You can check out a few of my highlights below...