I’m not entirely up-to-speed on the concept behind this evening, although I’m sure some of the cursory internet research for which this site is rightly lauded would have proved illuminating.  From what I gathered on the night it seems to have started with a film, some sort of Margate-set remake of The Wicker Man, and it spread to an album, and now to this show.  The dreich weather did seem suitably portentuous, however.

The first half of the show featured those original songs from the album, in the original order, although with some new arrangements and new performers – as, lets face it, the chances of getting Scott Walker or Robert Wyatt on stage these days are, sadly, pretty slim.  I wonder how Scott Walker is getting on with that “album he can tour” he has been promising us for about a decade?

Some highlights : King Creosote’s plague of  frogs, “Relate The Tale”, with the choir giving it a churchful of hallelujah in the background; the Wyatt-free yet still buzzy “Flies”; June Tabor (above) tickling the hairs on the back of my neck with her solo “Fifth Plague”; and the standout track from the original album “Hailstones”, which lacked some of the Tiger Lillies’ wracked vocals but was still a marvellously emotional thing.  Oh, and I nearly forgot: until tonight I had never heard Rufus Wainwright sing.  Honestly.  He isn’t bad, is he, this chap?  The fact that he was there performing “Katona” (with Imogen Heap) seemed to have attracted an army of fans, but it did end the first section on a gorgeous swoon of melody.

After a break for a leg-stretch and a loo queue, the second half of the evening comprised a new bunch of plagues, as if the Old Testament didn’t have enough already, or maybe they just weren’t menacing enough.  Doesn’t a slaughter of first borns do it any more?  I don’t know, people have become so desensitised; Halo 3 has so much to answer for.

Again, some good stuff here;  Phil Minton’s great hissy-babbly-whoopy Ligeti-style session with the choir; semi-naked show-off Patrick Wolf rubbing fake blood and paint into his skinny torso; and the finale, a startling knees-up-round-the-old-joanna-while-the-sun-sets-on-humankind from Damon Albarn and a children’s choir.  Just like with life itself, there is no encore, just a slow shuffle towards the exit, accompanied by a bunch of Patrick Wolf fans with brightly coloured shoes and glitter on their faces.

More photos on the flickr.

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