Patrick Wolf – KOKO, London 29/03/2011

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All photos by Stacy Liu

KOKO is a great venue for any show. Looming crimson and gold balconies stretch up (or down, depending on where you’re standing) around you, and create an instantly great atmosphere which must be pretty hard to kill.

Patrick Wolf, though, is not a man who needs help with atmospherics, and as his band take to the stage in the darkness, drifting into the first notes of the introduction, the feeling of anticipation from the crowd makes an almost visible electric haze rise through the room, as we wait for his appearance.

At first glimpse, the tall, imposing figure covered in a ragged, black cloak and topped with a shock of red hipster-hair has the whole room captivated. Then his voice hits the room, instantly filling the space with its beautiful dark tones, and we’re bewitched. Metres away, on the other side of the stage, or anywhere Wolf isn’t, anything could be happening, and we’d never have noticed.

After this opening spectacle, however, tonight’s show is relatively low on the wonderfully camp theatricality which has characterised previous Wolf shows. The more-about-the-music vibe that he’s been trying to get across in interviews is certainly coming strong though, and to be honest, I’m not missing the shoulder pads and leather trousers too much. Tonight, the cloak is soon discarded, leaving a fairly unexceptional outfit which remains until the encore’s final flourish, for which he briefly appears dressed as a leprechaun, ready to wish the crowd “top, top, top, top of the morning” in new track ‘The City‘, ending the night with a buoyancy not usually associated with his often melancholic material.

It’s clear that the six tracks from new album Lupercalia he plays tonight represent move upwards in tone that we’re going to have to get used to. Anyone who’s seen the new video for ‘The City’ or listened to ‘Time of My Life’ can’t have missed the saccharine lightheartedness that’s crept in, and live this comes across tenfold. Electro beats pound behind saxophones and the occasional ‘80s-esque synth, while Wolf himself jumps between ukelele, harp and violin effortlessly, all the time his all-encompassing voice never missing a note.

Compared to the self-depreciating, emotion drenched feeling of some of his earlier material, it’s quite clear this new music is no longer coming from the dark world of an outsider.

It’s soon clear why, too. “This song,” he proclaims midway through the set, “is about moving from living life in slow motion, to the slow motion of falling in love.” A spot light suddenly glares on the unsuspecting people on one of the balconies, and we’re treated to the story of how Wolf met his partner – apparently in this very venue, “just up there!” and the change to sunny sentimentality is accounted for.

It’s sweet, and of course no one is going to attack him for happiness, but there’s a thin line between being sweet and being sickly. Clearly though, he’s just about on the right side of this line, as the crowd goes mad for the story, and the ensuing ‘Slow Motion’.

Old favorites, ‘Tristan’ and ‘Accident and Emergency’ bring a welcome contrast to the overt happiness, while the delicate ‘Godrevy Point’, dedicated to Wolf’s father, who is apparently in the audience, moves the sentimentality into more slow, melodic territory, making us feel as if we’ve been through the whole spectrum of emotions tonight.

A perfectly mixed performance, then, and one which shows the often under-appreciated alt-pop-icon for the outcasts can still make perfectly crafted pop-songs, along side his pessimistic anthems, and he can still put on a great show.