at the Zodiac 6th February, 2007

The changing audiences of four of the last five gigs that Patrick Wolf has played in Oxford tells the story of the shift in gig going audiences. The first show was a late afternoon show in 2003 at MOMA, just Patrick and a lot of malfunctioning equipment. Everything went wrong, but in the intimate audience of 40 odd, anything was fine. Patrick had a reputation for being arty and weird.

The next year Patrick played another Trailerpark, this time in the Cellar, Patrick and a laptop. With the instruments in working order, this was the show that grabbed my attention. However my memory of Patrick, even after this most recent performance, will be at Truck 2005, turning round the corner and seeing him perform a cover of Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill.

With his third album, Patrick Wolf has moved on from the melancholy and minor keys. It was a shock at first to hear him sing so happily and positively. So it was with some trepidation, I watched his show. The most immediate change isn’t how the music has changed, but instead it’s how the audience has changed. Where in the past he attracted arty types, now he seems to be a popstar attracting a teenage audience. There were teenage girls singing along to his songs as if it was a McFly concert. That was weird. For me, Patrick Wolf’s songs are about isolation and a personal ownership of them. It was strange to hear a crowd singing them back just like any singalong song.

The other big problem was the sound. On the songs which were perfect for stomping and dancing, the beats were drowned out by the strings, and the Virginal that was used for all the piano parts just didn’t sound right with the rest of the instruments. Above all these problems there were still the signs to explain why Patrick Wolf is truly a unique artist of our time. By switching between all the different instruments, he was able to show off the variety of textures of sounds that most bands wouldn’t even think up. And his voice still sounds as great and rounded as ever.

The internet is probably a big factor in the changed audience. Now that music is so easily accessible, no doubt many more people have been able to get hold of Patrick’s music, but on the other hand I’d rather have that intimate, dark, closed in feeling of his music, rather than sharing it with everyone else.

at the Zodiac – 25th November, 2006

Performing to an impatient crowd, This Et Al made a difficult start. Leaving their more immediate songs until the end, the band first tried to stun us with then grandness of their sound. However, as everything was just too loud, some of the tiny details that sparkled on record were drowned out by the PA. The only tracks not to suffer from the over-dominant speakers were Wardens and You’ve Driven For Miles where they give us a glimpse of how their grandness and songs should actually sound. Still, it was great to hear a band not content to settling down to one type of sound, and continue to vary and change what they do.

The headliners, Minus the Bear are an example of how, even in the days of the internet, you can still not hear about everything. But plenty of other people had, and they filled out the room. Since the gig, I’ve found out that they are supposed to be ‘math rock’, but if they are, they are very formulaic and miss the inventiveness of similarly described band from this side of the ocean. Sounding more like a fast version of Death Cab for Cutie, everything was just too similar. By the fourth song, they had fallen into the pattern of quiet verse and loud chorus. While this may please some people, as they look to sing along to the loud bits, it would be more interesting to listen to a band that changes with every song.

At The Zodiac – Saturday 7th October, 2006

So, concluding three saturdays of Oxford based line ups at the Zodiac, this time upstairs, and for the third week in a row it was another sold out show. The success of these shows certainly show that there is support for live music, and there are more people who have an appetite for watching bands than we know (see all those discussions about getting people to come to gigs).

The stage upstairs suits The Keyboard Choir. Where in the past they have had to cram all their keyboards and members and assorted robots on to a tiny area, they were able to spread out and fill the room tonight. Their ambient electronica works even better in a room the size of the Zodiac, with space for the sounds to drift and grow. While other electronic artists will make a point about their art by standing motionless during their performance, another joy of the Keyboard Choir show are all the visuals. It’s almost like being at a fairground show, there is so much to watch. From the return of the robots (these v2 robots now featured lights, mechanical arms, electronic games and phones), the projections as well as watching the band members too.

Another band whose visual side add to the strength of the band are The Rock of Travolta. They have always been slightly cheeky with their music, mixing in just the right amount of Spinal Tap references with their highly melodic postrock. Their new material seamlessly mixes in with their slightly rejigged older songs, and they have achieved the near impossible of maintaining the same attitude to their music throughout. While many other bands would lose sight of the unique points about their bands, TROT are still writing punchy, epic, and most importantly, fun songs, and long may they continue to do so.

Asking other gig goers why they liked Fell City Girl, the word epic popped up many times. Well, apart from the band being epic in the sense that all their volume controls were turned up to maximum, even the two support bands were more epic than FCG. Weaker Light is a good song, but everything else just seemed to sound exactly the same. Yet the audience in the room lapped it all up, and even screamed for more. The only way to understand why FCG are epic is if their average fan thought that Razorlight were rock, and The Automatic are punk, and their musical mentor was Jo Whiley. Advice to FCG fans, if you really want to listen to some epic indie rock with melodies, go and find the Ultrasound album instead.