Last night we went to see Patrick Wolf play, wahey! Great excuse to wear my dress if nothing else. I had a nap, because last night's late night was very fun, but also (by definition) very late.

We tried to dump the spare ticket on virtually everyone, including one of the Light Side of the Kitchen who hadn't been able to get tickets. They're all going through a financial crisis over there, surviving on Basics range, and are therefore even more unwilling to accept charity than usual. Everyone's usually OK to borrow a bit of cheese, bit of sugar, except when it comes to the end of the month and the loans are running low when people will always refuse. Ah well. Luckily, Calypso's play ended early and Mr Wolf didn't come on till midnight. So we hung around the Halls of the Dude for a bit, and came up with another page of the Penatium mythology. What can I say, except that it's all getting very Heavenly Creatures, in the best possible use of that phrase? In the mean time, I had an OK smoothie - an apple, an orange, orange juice, grape juice and ice - although nothing terribly special. We finished off the pitta bread which yesterday I'd claimed would end up going to waste - Calypso and I had decided we needed to do Greek feast, so there were leftovers. Then we took some busses to get there and had a tense moment at the door because Vapilla didn't have any ID. The Security Guard was nice, though, on account of her being a Virgo, like him. She said she'll carry her passport in future, which is all well and good but if you're going to a nightclub, should they really be encouraging people to carry things like that? It's a bit like Camden itself - all of the stuff is really expensive, none of the shops take card, yet it's the last place in the world where you'd actually want to walk around with £100 in your pocket.

We came in a tiny bit late - we must have missed a song, maybe a song and a half. KOKO is a lovely, lovely venue - it's basically a converted Victorian theatre painted up in red, which means the views are actually excellent. We stood on the first tier stairs, and though I did worry that one of the myriad people coming up and down with drinks were going to soak my dress, all was well and we could see really well.

The first thing I should explain - Patrick Wolf is sex on legs, an undead Maxwell Demon, a Peter Pan made of electricity and strobe lighting. And I got the impression that I wasn't the only one - had he got much closer to the audience, they might have eaten him. In both senses of the word.


We discussed maybe kidnapping him, tying him up with silk ribbons and then the rest isn't work safe. What can I say, Patrick Wolf is maybe the only artist who brings out my inner-screaming-girlfan. And this was exacerbated by him spending the concert wearing nought but leather trousers and silver glitter-glue. I suppose it's more down to the bands I like - Genesis were fairly attractive, when they were young, but that was some time ago, and while all the members of the Guillemots are lovely, well...they're the Guillemots, and I'd feel strange doing anything beyond reading them a bedtime story and tucking them in with milk and a biscuit (oo-er!). But Mr Wolf is totally delectable, and especially in real life. I think it's something in the way he moves, perhaps.

Anyway, it was Bluebells first, then Accident and Emergency, and then Magic Position which got the biggest scream of the night for good reason - it's just so dancy-happy, and is also probably the most accessable of his songs:

Stylistically, I'd describe it as "crazy ghost gypsies who just discovered electricity", for which the technical term appears to be "folktronica". Broadly speaking, album 1 "Lycanthropy" is noises and scratching, and is absolutely terrifying (typified by Childcatcher, don't listen to it after dark), "Wind in the Wires" is cold and foggy (Ghost Song!), and "Magic Position" is a bit more relaxed and nature-based. The instruments attributed to him on the second album include Baritone and Soprano Ukuleles, Kantale, Mountain Dulcimer, Farfisa Transivox Electronic Accordion, and Reed Organ.

In terms of noise it was awesome - his voice is already an odd one, a bit like a counter-culture Rick Astley in it's unexpected depth. But they also had drums, a double bass, violin, keyboard and Moog on stage, and while the drums were too loud compared to the keyboard (sound balance wasn't phenomenal), the overall impression was ace. And there was much random-noise-making on stage, with a variety of electronic things. Most impressively, stretched on the stage curled up and crablike, as he strokes one such instrument to create the opening scream of Accident and Emergency. He really knows what to do with a stage.


After that, he left the stage for a long instrumental break - and then he returned, and until people start uploading their photos I can't really define the new costume, but it involved more glitter, more leather and a silver-glitter ram's head prop (I think this was the same outfit). That's what I love about him and his music - it's so instinctive, and he just wears what he likes on stage in the same way he plays what he likes, and I always love watching people content in themselves and he is nothing if not an Artist with capital A.

It would have been nice had they played Tristran, but it was only an hour long. I suppose it was a club night, and it was only £5 - but still, twas a shame. The good news is he's touring properly in a few months. Will we be going again? Oh yes we will!

You shouldn't feel guilty for good fortune, but I always do, and I wish Friend 2 could have been there. In any case it was disappointingly short so we hung around for a while afterwards to enjoy the atmosphere.


It was pleasantly friendly - we hung around in one of the royal boxes, and amazingly met loads of people we knew. Calypso bumped into a fellow feminist friend who she'd mentioned more than once early in the week, while I met Merula from Latin. Didn't exactly recognise her at first, except by this fantastic bird necklace she always wears and which I have been admiring for weeks. Apparently, there was at least one other Classicist there. She was accompanied by a nice young man introduced as Drake, who had the most perfect Number 6 blazer. Unfortunately, our conversation dried up entirely when he informed me he wasn't a Prisoner fan. Oh, I thought, and went back to watching the crowd bouncing non-committaly to some piece of nondescript noise.

I'm still not a fan of the party scene - I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of late nights, and alcohol makes me sulky, and that leaves me too self-conscious to dance (not that the music is inspiring anyway). But after last night, I do at least get it. In Guernsey, the atmosphere's OK - everyone's trying to have a great time - but the floors are sticky with spilt beer and desperation, and there are never quite enough people. Like everything else in Guernsey, they're living in imitation of something which doesn't quite work in minature - another great example of that is our disaster-zone government, which is pretending to be democratic but can't disguise the fact the island is too small to produce sufficiently talented politicians, and the abundance of white, conservative, Christian middle-class people makes mockery of choice, as we live in a virtually one-party state. Although arguably, most of the people they represent come into that catagory too, so maybe it's not the worst thing in the world. When we move to the Moon, they'll build geo-bubbles so we can have sidewalks, window-boxes and zebra crossings, just as Victorian Adventuresses travelled India and Africa without ever exposing their ankles. Forgetting that in a new world, the rules of the old one just don't apply.

In any case, we got back around 3 and listened to some terrifying Nick Cave country-and-western which made Johnny Cash sound like a boy scout, before toddling to the land of nod.

Lots of people appeared to be filming/photographing, so I'll do an update in a few days when it's all online - I love the internet!! But I probably won't blog over the weekend, as Friend 2 has somehow managed to win(?!) Snow Patrol tickets for the O2(?!), and I've offered her the use of my floor. This coincided nicely with Friend 4's end of term, so we're going to be doing London tourist stuff.