Friday, October 5, 2007

Patrick Wolf @ Webster Hall - Oct 3, 2007

Do you guys have any request?

Let's highlight the obvious thing one must see at a Patrick Wolf show: Dude is certainly a multi instrumentalist...


He is also quite odd and adorable. As you can see he came out to the stage looking like a Mozart lost in time, with a loose blue shirt, gnome short boots and a crucifix hanging from his neck. Not a surprise if you have seen him before or seen news about him online, but he slowly then took the unnecessary stuff off him in an action of showing us who he really was, something I hadn't seen in him before. A slow song he wrote when he lived in Paris (called Paris), very young, was the one he used to get me closer in presence only of his piano and his voice, and when he got my attention even more playing Peter Pan, a firework sound blew me away as I expected... The Bluebells (although I missed the intro with The Bluebell), one of the best songs of his wonderful The Magic Position, kicked off. Unfortunately, the song lacked some of the energy and he lost me for a long while after that...

Patrick doesn't seem to be having as much fun as he says and he used to, and that totally turned me down. His band has changed and doesn't engage the public anymore with their presence. He had to change his drummer because of drug abuse and who knows why the violinist is not the same girl anymore. In any case, the major problem is that I caught Patrick this time at a moment that he was tired of playing the same songs over and over, and I guess those were the ones from the new album, because I didn't hear many. That was reflected in a very non tight set to me because I think those are his best yet. Of course, we heard kick-ass songs like Accident & Emergency and Magic Position, and even fans had the opportunity (twice) of shouting at thim what to play next, so at least I got to hear live some Patrick tunes I hadn't really paid attention before.

Anyway, let's keep talking about the highlights instead. Another one came when Wolf invited opening act Bashi, his musical sister, on stage to sing a song with him. I knew it was going to be beautiful right away, and I knew it not because I had heard Bashi before or not, but because the song had to be no other than the killer Magpie. He wished he could have a real piano on stage, although his Yamaha electric piano was ok. Electric or not that song sounded amazing. He then kept playing more songs I don't know, alternating piano, violin, and a small guitar, and closed the set with The Magic Position, an instantaneous hit (whether you've heard it before or not).


The encore was kind of funny. He started playing a song and then he stopped it like 10 seconds into it. He said he didn't like it anymore. He played one more song and disappeared. Before the encore, he invited us to come to an after party in Beauty Bar, but he never showed up... jeeezzzz I waited for like 2 hours. Patrick, in record you are wonderful, but live I hope you get even better. And next time please play Enchanted! See ya later... [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♫

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

Patrick Wolf links: Stream The Magic Position, Official Website, Wikipedia, YouTube

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