Live Report: Gorillaz bring a visual and vocal feast to Electric Picnic

Awe-inspiring views are always guaranteed at any Gorillaz show, and Saturday night's closing Main Stage set offered festival-goers the usual visual and vocal spectacle from the mind of Damon Albarn.

They led us in with the opening moments of "The Mountain, the Moon Cave and the Sad God" and a psychedelic voiceover from Dennis Hopper into The Happy Dictator and other singles from their latest album The Mountain, Albarn taking the time to tell us how happy he was to be in Ireland.

It's a mixed bag of a setlist chronologically, jumping back to Tomorrow Comes Today and 19-2000 off their eponymous debut album, sprinkling in a bit of the Demon Days stuff with Last Living Souls and then a brace of hits off Plastic Beach, including Rhinestone Eyes and Melancholy Hill, before cycling back into The Mountain singles.

After bringing out Kara Johnson for guest vocals on The Hardest Thing, Albarn asks us to "Give it up for the Gorillaz band, it's multigenerational, multicultural and there's a lot of people in it that aren't here anymore if you can wrap your head around that," no doubt a reference to the late Mark E Smith vocals that play out over next track Delirium.

Gorillaz at Electric Picnic on August 29, 2026. Copyright Jason Doherty/hotpress.com

He heads down the steps a few times to connect with the front row, and during a second round of crowd work for Andromeda he comes back up draped in a keffiyeh from a crowd member which he wears for the next few songs.

A real guest treat is when he brings out Leee John for her vocal turn on the The Lost Chord — for the first time since 2021 — and Moonchild Sanlley's turn out for With Love to an Ex has everyone shaking their ass.

We get another dip back to the big hits with Stylo, Kids with Guns and Dirty Harry in quick succession, with Bootie Brown coming out to hype us up during a few of these.

The energy dips a little during The Shadowy God, and Albarn waffles on a little about peace and love before dropping us into Feel Good Inc, which gets us dancing again.

"You have proven yourself worthy opponents" he tells us, before asking we show our appreciation for the band and launching into Clint Eastwood to finish on a triumphant note (on the melodica of all things), so we send them home with a round of Olé Olé Olé as they take their bows.

You can find all of the Hot Press coverage from the entire Electric Picnic 2026 weekend right here.