Me being a huge fan of Patrick Wolf and having seen him 7 times before, the expectations were high as he walks out dressed in a hooded cape with the hood up and gave the audience a sense of anticipation as at first you could hear him singing “Armistice” but you couldn’t see him until he came forward midway through this song, still hooded and the spotlight shone on the indie pop sensation. After taking the hood off, there stood him dressed in a suit, he certainly kept to his word when he said in an interview for “The Evening Standard” “I’m going to be more normal now, I’m going to be myself”.
This was my first visit to Camden Koko, now I’ve turned 18 I don’t get turned down at the door anymore, I was very impressed with my visit, it is a very nice venue, its small which I like, the only thing I don’t like about this venue is the price of a pint here. It was nice to hear the amount of meaning this venue had to him, before the song “Slow Motion” from his new album “Lupercalia” he explained “This song is about the moment I fell in love with my fiancé, in this venue” he then went on to explain “this venue is my favorite to perform at”. The sound in this venue was very good, it being a small venue probably helping, his vocals were excellent, especially in the likes off “Bluebells” where he slowed down the end so it was just him vocally without any instruments at all, it was a very beautiful moment. The lighting he used was in perfect co-ordination with the music, for example, if the music went quicker the lights did, the lights also added to the slow vocal parts, with just a basic spotlight which is always nice. This gig had the perfect possible atmosphere for a Patrick Wolf gig, there was a lot of jumping and dancing movement on the songs that needed it, songs like crowd favorite “Tristan”, but the slower songs the crowd would just stand and sing them back loud to him like oldie “To The Lighthouse”, it was a lovely atmosphere.
Before this gig, I was very excited to see Patrick Wolf because I knew he was very reliable live, I was also very excited to see his new material. During the gig I felt as if I just wanted to jump and dance, I was very happy and satisfied throughout, the only disappointment was that he slipped up on a couple of new songs, he joked after missing his queue on new song “Bermondsey Street”, “This is my first gig after about 9/10 years not doing click tracks so I’m supposed to just magically play in time”. He also messed up and had to start again on another new song “House”, which was a bit of a disappointment. This was certainly one of my favorite Patrick Wolf gigs, there was just something special about it, the amount the venue meant to him and him getting tearful made it all quite an emotional experience and warmed the crowd to him, another thing that made it very special is that it was his bassist Nick Haward’s birthday, so when announcing his band he purposely missed out his bassist for a joke but then in the middle of Lady Gaga’s favorite song at the time “The City”, then the crowd erupted in a cry off Happy birthday, which was accompanied onstage by violinist “Victoria Sutherland” bringing on glasses off champagne, it felt like we were part of his birthday party. Then Patrick Wolf went back into his extended version of “The City” causing 1,410 people to dance like mad. The only thing that would have made this gig better is if he didn’t make them mistakes and there was a different support artist as Rowdy Superstar certainly wasn’t for my taste however there were a few happy faces at the front of the crowd that seemed to have just come for him (Probably his family). A magical evening indeed.
Rating: 4/5
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