Gorillaz Launch Arena Spectacular In October

After conquering Coachella and Glastonbury with explosive headlining sets, Damon Albarn's cartoon band Gorillaz will hit the road for their first ever world tour this fall. The band will bring its "Escape to Plastic Beach" show stateside this October and while the 20-date North American itinerary has not yet been set, one date has been confirmed: October 8th at New York's Madison Square Garden, marking the first time the Gorillaz have played the venue. Exclaim.ca also reports that Gorillaz will perform at Montreal's Bell Centre on October 3rd.

Check out video of Gorillaz' Plastic Beach saga.

In addition to North America, Gorillaz will tour Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. The trek kicks off July 25th with a show in Syria. Pre-sale tickets for all announced dates are available through the band's Sub-Division fan club.

Keep up with rock's latest news in Random Notes.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, Gorillaz were called in as emergency replacements for U2 at this year's Glastonbury festival. For their headlining slot, Gorillaz brought out a slew of special guests including Bobby Womack, De La Soul, the Fall's Mark E. Smith and Lou Reed, all of whom had cameos on the band's latest album Plastic Beach. Snoop Dogg also appeared to add two new verses to Gorillaz' breakout hit "Clint Eastwood." The band pulled out similar surprises at this year's Coachella, getting Womack and the Clash's Mick Jones and Paul Simonen to make guest appearances for Gorillaz' closing night performance.

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Song Stories

“Time to Pretend”

MGMT | 2008

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”

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