It almost sounds made up, that a band would want a larger than life fake mammal on stage. But this is the exact request Blossoms made, John Simm is the man who had to make this possible.
What musical choices could possibly warrant an eight-foot fibreglass gorilla to join the band on stage? Believe it or not, it was the muse of their most recent album. John Simm is Blossom’s production manager and refers to the gorilla as ‘the big lad’, whose official name is Gary.
The idea was born after a fake gorilla was stolen from a garden centre in Scotland. This terrible crime prompted the band to write a song about the theft, titled Gary. It was a single on their fifth studio album released in 2024, which also bore the Gorilla’s name and went number one.
And so, obviously, the band wanted this muse and mascot on stage. So what was it like taking ‘the big lad’ on tour?
“Difficult,” says John quite bluntly. “It’s quite a logistical challenge moving a gorilla around, not one I’d considered before 2024.”
It’s probably not something John thought he would ever be doing when he started his career in the music industry.
“My reaction was ‘Ok, let’s try and find out how to do this.’ Because I had no experience whatsoever dealing with fibreglass gorillas. It was definitely a first. It seemed like a great way of getting people involved in the album and it worked really well. People got dead engaged with the Gary album and everybody wanted Gary and to see him come out.
“He is quite large, to the point where we did the tour I had to contact all of the venues on tour and get all the information for things like lighting and audio. But also how big is your entrance onto stage? It started getting extremely weird contacting venues asking if we could wheel a gorilla on. But they were all very accommodating.
“I think it’s worked well for them, injecting a little bit of British humour into the gigs, which can all be too serious sometimes.”
And the gigs definitely weren’t serious, especially when you hear about the other gorilla, who joined the band for the slightly smaller venues.
“We had to buy a second gorilla, called Gabby, who was about six foot tall and would fit between the barrier and the stage. All the venues were generally quite excited. In 1,500 to 2,000 capacity venues you don’t necessarily get that kind of silly stuff going on.”
John has worked with Blossoms for about 10 years so is used to hearing some of their more unusual ideas.
“There are certain things that they’ll come up with- ideas which are out of the box and brilliant, but then you have to go: ‘Right lads, we need to rein this in a bit,’ because either it’s going to be really costly or it’s just not going to be practical on the stages that we do.”
The set design for Blossoms, Gary aside, is beautifully done. It has a retro feel, featuring orange curtains and drapes covering the stage. “Going a bit more old school with things made quite a difference for them. They’ve gone back to the 70s and the 80s and looked at how stage shows worked then, it was drapes and that kind of thing.”
The vintage vibe makes it mark in an era of tours where there is a heavy use of lighting and video content to make the show visually interesting.
“There’s more media content going on now, more screen content and potentially shorter attention spans for things on stage. You can’t just rock up now and do your standard show, strut about and hope that’s enough. There has to be extra stuff going on to make sure it’s an interesting show for people.”
If there is one thing that is going to make a show visually interesting, it is a ginormous gorilla. Through their mascot, Blossoms prove that music doesn’t have to be so serious, it can just be entertaining. SA
Featured images via John Simm
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