Photos: Gorillaz at the Forum

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Gorillaz at the Forum (Photo by Samuel C. Ware)
Gorillaz at the Forum (Photo by Samuel C. Ware)

Gorillaz conducted an extravagant, ecstatic dance party Thursday night at the Forum, packing their typically eye-catching visuals and more than two dozen guest appearances into a two-hour show the crowd greeted with deafening delight.

Touring in support of the new Gorillaz album “Humanz,” Damon Albarn and crew followed Vince Staples’ smoky opening set by starting with four songs from four different albums — “Last Living Souls,” “Saturnz Barz,” “Tomorrow Comes Today” and “Rhinestone Eyes.” For the first half of the set, they continued to time-hop around their catalog before segueing into the second half and a string of cameos.

It was Pusha T on the new song “Let Me Out,” followed by Bootie Brown (“Dirty Harry”), Staples (“Ascension”) and Peven Everett (“Strobelite”). D.R.A.M.’s guest turn on the new song “Andromeda” (named for a club Albarn favored in his youth) was a highlight, and the cameos kept coming until De La Soul turned up and earned a huge roar for 2010’s “Superfast Jellyfish.” They would come back during the encore for “Feel Good.”

The main set ended with the 2 1/2-minute blast “We Got the Power,” featuring Jhenny Beth of Savages, while the six-song encore included Del the Funky Homosapien rocking everybody back to 2001 on “Clint Eastwood,” followed by the core band doing “Don’t Get Lost in Heaven” and “Demon Days.”

Photos by Samuel C. Ware