Patrick Wolf Live¶
316 words on Live , Patrick Wolf
It’s British Music Week in Germany which means they cart British bands into buses drive them around Germany and make them play gigs or so. I used the opportunity to see Patrick Wolf in the course of this. While I find his new album The Magic Position to be a bit on the poppy side, I liked the previous gigs I saw enough to have another look.
A girl – whose name I forgot – called Bishi with a Sitar and a little electronic machine with recorded beats was the support ‘band’. That fit in quite well with the rest of music although she seemed quite stressed during the more complicated parts of her playing the instrument. She was a bit ridiculously overdressed and we saw her again at the very end when joining Patrick to sing Magpie for an encore.
Patrick’s band had a violin, double bass, drum kit and electronic toys played by others while he played the piano, viola, ukelele and of course sang. As far as the effort is concerned, he has come quite a long way since I first saw him on stage, alone with a viola, ukelele and computer to work with.
But the extra acoustic instruments on stage were nice and added to the sound, particularly in the more elaborate newer pieces (although the drum kit sounded a bit too soft for my taste). However, a number of pieces of Lycanthropy – including the brilliant and dramatic Childcatcher – were played as well and I have to say I still like them best as they have the more powerful beats and the more deliberate electronic playing.
That is not to say that the more quiet moments were bad. In fact they felt much closer and personal, were excellent and went all the way down to singing without the microphone which really made everybody be quiet for the moment. Wonderful.
