Patrick Wolf

Patrick Wolf's shows are amazing, and you'll rarely if ever see the same show twice -- even if you're seeing him back to back at the same venue, as he hand-curates his set list from his huge discography thoroughly.

If you don't know him, his genre can be a little hard to pin down. Patrick Wolf is a classically-trained violinist who started a punk zine when he was a teenager and put out his first album not long afterward: he's based in both folk and punk traditions, and is an instrumentalist who hops easily between synth and floor harp, ukelele and violin. Celtic reels weave into angry love songs, synth brightens a revolution, harp turns a pop love song into a soundtrack. His recent music has been more solidly 'pop' but it would be a mistake to simply categorize it this way.

The experience can vary quite a bit, depending on if you're catching him playing a fully electric/acoustic show or a small stripped-down acoustic gig. I've seen both. Both almost always seem intimate: he jokes with the audience, with his fellow musicians on stage, tells stories, and you can feel for a bit as if you're the friend of this multi-instrumentalist (even afterward, when he usually will hang around to say hello to devoted fans). If I had anything bad to say about it, it's that he knows his own flaws too well, so occasionally he'll interrupt himself to apologize for something the audience hasn't caught.

There's a little more room for theatricality in a big stage and Patrick does not disappoint in this regard - everything from stage presence to costuming makes this a theater experience as much as a show. A good portion of the audience will be covered in glitter and more than likely Patrick will be too at some point (though, maybe a little more subdued as of late...which is not to say at all subdued). At a smaller venue, some of this is of course condensed, but the unique atmosphere is incredibly worth it to hear his lyrically incredible songs close up and rearranged.

I am definitely gushing, but there's a reason that I jumped on a megabus to see three of his shows back to back - and, on what was also a romantic vacation to the UK, took a couple-hours train to Brighton to barely eat before standing in line in the rain with my partner for the Patrick Wolf gig and then upon heading back immediately got in line for the London show. His shows are amazing and should not be missed, and so is his music.