Gorillaz Debuted A Whole New Album And Brought Out Sparks & Johnny Marr At House Of Kong Closer

7:18 PM EDT on September 3, 2025

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The Gorillaz House Of Kong residency came to an end tonight. For their fourth evening at London's Copper Box Arena, the band performed an entire new album in full and brought many special guests.

After playing Gorillaz one night, Demon Days the next, and then Plastic Beach plus some The Fall cuts, for this "mystery show" the band did a set of ten new songs with no encore, and phones were not allowed. Some of the new tunes are rumored to be named "The Happy Dictator" (that one featured Sparks) "Fresh Arrivals" (with Omar Souleyman and Yasiin Bey), and "The Sad God" (with Black Thought and Kara Jackson). Other surprise guests included Anoushka Shankar, IDLES’ Joe Talbot, Johnny Marr, Trueno, Gruff Rhys, and Paul Simonon, according to attendees. Along with frontman Damon Albarn, Gorillaz’s current live lineup has Mike Smith, Karl Vanden Bossche, Jeff Wootton, Seye Adelekan, and Jaega Mckenna-Gordon, and tonight's show featured a string quartet and brass ensemble. The opener was DJ Lady Ruffelin.

Albarn revealed ahead of the residency that the final night would feature new music, so it's not a complete surprise. He recently told the Times the new album "is in four languages."The question now is: When will it come out?

We went to the @gorillaz mystery show. It was a cell phone-free concert because they were playing from their new album. The album was heavy on Indian tunes. The orchestra was quite large: four strings, four backing vocalists, three Indian instruments, etc. pic.twitter.com/57mqu2nfWW
— Caner Öz (@kimkiocanmio) September 3, 2025