Was it worth all that war just to win?

Patrick Wolf + Micachu & The Shapes, London Palladium, 15/11/09

I’ve gushed about Patrick Wolf many times in this blog already. I’m about to do it again, so make sure you’re sitting comfortably.

This was to be The Show To End All Shows. A one-off performance to celebrate Patrick’s seven year career to date, and topping off a 2009 which saw him take another sequined step towards the mass adulation that everyone attending tonight knows he deserves.

The setting was the Palladium, taking a night off from Sister Act – THE MUSICAL!!! and providing home for a couple of thousand extroverts and bohemians. I’ve not been in a room of so full of gay men since Ice Cream rolled out of town. It was the perfect venue. Ornate, classical and echoing with history.

Starting the night were Micachu & The Shapes, taking up a small area in the centre of the stage. Starting with a clanging drone that shuffled its way into a tune, each track swerved between abstract catchiness and what my Mum would describe as “just a load of noise”. Micachu herself reminded me of Justine Frischmann’s semi comatose androgyny. I’m still a bit undecided, but they shared the same uncompromising spirit that has been at the core of Patrick’s work since the very beginning.

So that got us in the mood for something a bit different, which is what tonight was to be all about. To add to this, the pre-performance music ranged from classical to gypsy folk to Cheryl Cole. Surely, somewhere in this myriad sonic triangle lies Patrick Wolf.

After new (I think) song Divine Intervention is sung behind the closed Safety Curtain, the all too familiar tribal thump of Overture begins. The curtain raises. The strings soar. He appears. And, not for the first time that night, the tears begin.

This gig put a few things into perspective for me. Is there any other artist or band that could draw this reaction from me? Radiohead, very possibly, but however much I love them, they like to keep a certain distance from their audience. Blur and Pulp also have the means, but I’m unlikely to see either of them live any time soon. Maybe it just doesn’t take much to make me cry these days, after a combination of relatives passing away, pets being put down and friends leaving town. God help me when The Doctor regenerates in the new year, I’ll probably need therapy.

I’m rambling.

The set had an understandable focus on The Bachelor, with debut Lycanthropy also healthily represented. As my main love falls for the middle two records, it would have been nice to hear a few more from them, but seriously this was not a performance you could fault. Other than that it ended and I had to go back to dull reality afterwards.

The highlights were numerous. Florence bringing the house down for a lusty rendition of The Bachelor. Wind In The Wires and its hushed fragility. Oblivion unveiling a horned leather jacket as well as The Voice Of Hope, and Hard Times finally getting people dancing in the aisles, as well as Alec Empire attacking what appeared to be a cybernetic ironing board.

It was this call to arms that made the whole night really kick off. There was a rush to the front of the stage, sporadically broken up by the theatre’s ushers, but the delirium was never truly quashed from then on. After a fiddle with the set list, The Libertine arrived and transformed into a stomping ukulele-off. The divine Damaris has now joined the ranks of Classic Wolf, meaning that Tristan felt like a bit of an afterthought in its wake.

Arriving at the end of the main set, which had lasted almost two hours, The Magic Position came with Patrick sporting a shiny new top hat and a tear in his eye. Its very telling that there are no decent videos of this on You Tube, as the hysteria among us all reached its peak. Some things are just impossible to document on camera phones. The performance of this song and what it means to me is hard to put into words, so I won’t.

Returning for a touching rendition of The Sun Is Often Out, dedicated to a lost friend, the end came with Vulture. Tonight’s outfits included a black feathered ensemble followed by something involving bamboo and pantaloons, but the finale was delivered in see-through trousers and a liberal application of silver body paint, emerging from behind the curtain on a rotating disco ball. I fucking love that I wrote that sentence and every word of it is true.

Tonight we watched a man throw his very essence into a show that he has been preparing for his entire life. Over the years Patrick Wolf has been occasionally outspoken and often uncompromising to the point of career destruction. Was it worth all that war just to win? Yes it was.