Fresh from curating a pod at last night’s Flight 5065 event at the London Eye, Xfm Online spoke exclusively to Damon Albarn who confirmed Gorillaz will be playing a number live shows before the end of the year.

Speaking about the cartoon band’s live commitments, Albarn explained that due to the complexity of the show and the number of live guests involved, the band will be playing six shows in one venue this coming winter.

“[Things with the Gorillaz' album] are going very well,” he explained. “We’re gonna play in Manchester for six nights, I think, at the Opera House. And the reason for that is that we wanted to play somewhere where we could be central because of all the mad collection of musicians and to get them in one place at one time is really difficult.

“That’s how it’s ended up. And I think it’s in November.”

Albarn also spoke about his involvement with the Café direct ‘Flight 5065′ event and the experience of curating a half hour show for just 25 people, surrounded in glass, some 500 feet in the air.

“My record label Honest Jon’s were asked if we’d like to curate a pod,” Albarn continued, “And at the time I don’t think we really viewed it as having any relationship to G8, and Live 8 wasn’t happening then - this was about three months ago we were asked - but it just happens to come at a time when there’s a lively debate about things, which is fantastic. It’s something I feel very strongly about.

“We have an artist called Ko Kan Ko Sata who’s from Mali. It’s a big country, with I don’t know how many languages, it’s very diverse and like most countries in Africa it’s the result of colonial cake dividing. She plays an instrument called the magoni which is like a harp and she sings with that and sometimes with percussion. And she’s very good!”

Xfm