Gorillaz Overwhelm Pechanga Arena with Little Simz and Deltron 3030
Gorillaz brought The Mountain Tour to Pechanga Arena in San Diego on October 25th with Little Simz and Deltron 3030 opening. Doors opened and the floor filled up fast. From the get go it was obvious everyone was ready and excited.
Deltron 3030 hit the stage first. Old school flow, clean and unfussy, the kind of rap that doesn’t feel the need to rush. The backing tracks had that same vintage texture to them. What got me was the graphics running behind them. Lyrics scrolled across the big screen in real time, synced to every bar. To me it wasn’t flashy, it instead made you focused onto every word flowing. A solid way to open a night like this.
Then Little Simz came out and everything stepped up. The bass hit so hard I could feel it moving through the entire arena floor. Not just hear it, feel it. Her set was the kind of thing that physically gets into you before your brain has even processed what’s happening. The graphics behind her were sharp, cameras cutting and reframing constantly, and the whole presentation felt deliberate. She knew exactly what she was doing up there.
Between songs she kept calling out to us. “San Diego, hello.” Not in a hollow call-and-response way. It actually felt like she was checking in. She talked about warming up the crowd for the headliner and said it with a laugh, completely unbothered, like someone who knows their own value without having to prove it. Her lyrics are heavy but the way they flow is anything but. There’s nothing choppy about it. Every word just fits into the next and carries you along without you realizing how far you’ve gone.
The crowd had their hands up the whole time, moving them side to side, fingers out. And what really caught me was how few phones were out. People were just there, watching and feeling it. That doesn’t happen as often as it should at shows this size.
She closed with something I wasn’t expecting. She stopped and talked to us, something close to a long spoken poem about love. What it means to her. What it can be. I liked how it didn’t feel forced. It was an honest message spoken from the heart. And then it turned into a song. “Love will set us free.” By the end of it, people in the stands had their phone flashlights on and were waving them without even being prompted to. She teared up on stage smiling. It was one of those moments that doesn’t quite translate when you try to describe it later but you know you won’t forget it. Her final song was a love letter to women. The crowd was still asking for more when it ended.
When Gorillaz took the stage the whole arena shifted to a new level yet again. If I’m going to be honest I’m not a diehard fan. I know the songs and I respect what they’ve built over the years but I don’t have the history with them that a lot of people in that room clearly did. And watching those people made the whole thing feel even bigger. The energy in that place was something specific.
What I didn’t expect was the sheer number of people involved in pulling off a Gorillaz show live. Musicians, featured artists, production. There’s a lot happening at once and all of it is deliberate. The visuals and video animations they ran before certain songs were some of the best I’ve seen at a show this size. Each one felt like its own small film.
Damon got close to the front barricade constantly throughout the night. People were getting things signed, getting hugged. Real hugs, not the awkward lean-over kind. One moment that stuck with me was when he hugged a fan in the front row who was crying from happiness. They were dressed up as 2D, the blue-haired missing-teeth character. He held them for more than just a moment. It felt real.
He wasn’t done there. Twice during the night a character named Alan came out on stage. If you’ve never seen him before, picture Beaker from the Muppets with towering spiked hair. He rolled out a stand with a large red button labeled “Algorithmic Atrophy” and Damon pressed it, triggering a full screen glitch of randomized imagery and memes over the visuals. The crowd lost it both times. That kind of weird theatrical energy is just part of what Gorillaz is and the audience was fully in on it.
At some point a fan passed a Mexican flag up to the stage. He took it and kept waving it the entire walk back across the stage. The section that fan was standing in went absolutely wild.
Little Simz came back out for “Garage Palace” and the room got loud all over again. Posdnuos joined for “Superfast Jellyfish” and “Feel Good Inc.” To close the night, Del the Funky Homosapien stepped back out to perform “Clint Eastwood” alongside the band. It was a full-circle moment given he’d opened the show with Deltron 3030 just hours before, and it was the right call. There wasn’t a better song to end on.
The San Diego stop also saw the tour debut of “Souk Eye“, which for the people who knew it was clearly a moment. The reactions said everything.
I went in curious and came out genuinely moved by it. Not just by Gorillaz but by the whole night. Deltron 3030 set a tone, Little Simz raised the ceiling on what the night could be, and Gorillaz delivered a show that felt big in all the right ways without ever feeling cold. That’s harder to pull off than it looks.