crazybobbles

Ah man that was an epic gig, shame I had a burning desire to strangle most of the fans at the gig. Patrick Wolf is by far the most photogenic and charismatic person I’ve seen this year.

I spent the first half of the morning sleeping and relaxing (relaxing being killing zombies/infected) for my holidays (mmm sweet sweet holiday). I arrived at the venue 30 minutes before the gig only to find that there was quite a queue going on already. I wasn’t too surprised about this since I was already informed that Patrick Wolf fans are quite dedicated. I met up with John, Anika and eventually Adam (who had a haircut too haha)

I’m so glad I’m tall, though I was 2 rows back, I had perfect view of everything since the people in front of me were TINNNNNY (hehe). My coat and hair was covered in glitter in a matter of seconds as the crowd around me were smothering the sparkly stuff all over them. The first act was Craig Template. The lead singer had a really strong scottish accent which was fun, the music wasn’t something I’d get into but it’s hard not to dance along to thumping beats, they were really friendly on stage.

Next up were Micachu and the Shapes. I wasn’t really keen on seeing them support Lykke Li at Scala so this was pretty much the same. This is where I would like to point out that some of the prepubescent fans in the crowd should really grow up before turning up to a gig (or perhaps not go at all). Still listening to the band play, all I kept hearing was this girl constantly going “OMG he’s like 12″ and which eventually led to her actually heckling Micachu and asking her how old she was. It was really embarassing (face palm style) and made me want to strap gaffa tape over this annoying girl’s mouth and launch her into out of space where noone can hear her heckle. She does more annoying stuff but I’ll leave it at that, damn some of the Patrick Wolf fans (like I said, some, not all, but the select few really do ruin it for the rest of them), most of them in front of me were cool.

After Macachu, the roadies started setting up the stage for Patrick Wolf, it became more and more apparent that Patrick might be doing his gig with a headset since we didn’t really see any mic stands on stage and all. Just to make things a bit more interesting and unconventional, here’s the plan of the stage so you can get a better idea of how it was set up (click on the photo for how I got the plan)

Was tempted to put notes and whatnot on the stage and talk you through it but that requires more time haha. I was located right near the star where it says “Vocal mic” :p Patrick’s band came on the stage first and the crowd went wild. Not long after does Patrick himself enter the stage wearing an epic cape type thing with crazy shoulders.

Man was he photogenic, from customes, to poses to the fact that he’s using a wireless mic to sing. I think he totally nailed the whole headset thing for his show. It’s definitely not the same as pop shows such as Britney and whatnot where it’s all dance orientated, he uses it to express himself more freely and also not worry about where he’s standing to sing into a mic, and of course he doesn’t lipsync like the others .

He played most of my favourite songs (mainly from The Magic Position) including Bluebells, The Magic Position and Accident & Emergancy, who could forget Tristan and Bloodbeat. Here’s a video of Patrick playing The Magic Position, excuse the shakeyness, damn fans haha.

Patrick was charming and charismatic throughout the show as well as being SUPER TALL, it didn’t really help that the stage was tall too hehe. Here’s a photo to sort of explain how tall he is.

… hmm that didn’t work did it? nevermind. I didn’t really take any full on shots of him. But I did take this crotch shot:

I would have worked even more when there were more bokeh hands at the bottom :p Patrick explained to the audience that he usually does his gigs drunk and how he was doing this gig sober, he also talked about his performance at the very same venue when he was 13. He was trying to master the guitar which he bought from Argos (like all kids do) and was pretty much miming it during the show.

Patrick came back for some more action. He wore a leather jacket and looked like he just dipped his head in red glitter! He talked of another new gig happening very soon which will feature a full on orchestra backing (well not a full on) and it will be based in a venue where they do the proms (so Royal Albert Hall ).

After that he threw the drape of his keyboard into the crowd and people went mad over it, in fact he threw quite a few things into the audience, one of which was his hair extensions, I constantly shouted “FIGHT” at the crowd whenever it landed near them which was fun. After that I sort of lost everyone I met at the gig and walked back to Waterloo to catch the train home. It was a lovely gig and if I wasn’t seeing another band tonight I would have definitely catched him playing live at Koko. If you like his stuff, buy stocks for his new album, I have 3 myself.

http://www.patrickwolf.com
http://www.bandstocks.com/Project.htm?ProjectId=510