(Please note that the beginning of this review was written earlier today while I was killing time waiting for the train. Hence any random asides. Feel free to ignore bracketed stupid comments. Anyone not wanting to know setlists should look away NOW.)
I attempted to draft this last night, but my pen died so here goes attempt 2:
Sitting in the sun outside Nottingham Castle (which looks nothing like the one in Robin Hood, by the way), the intensity of last night's show seems a long way off. However, given that my legs ache like hell and I'm still rather gig high, now seems as good a time as any to try to capture the emotion.
This show marks the first time I've ever really queued for a gig, which should be a good indication of how much I love Emilie Autumn. After queuing for two and a half hours for doors, then another hour and a half waiting inside, I was beginning to get fed up. I'm not a patient person at the best of times and combined with my fear of crowds, my patience almost snapped after a teasing false start. The situation was remedied ten minutes later with the most dramatic entrance I think I've ever seen. Against the electronic tones of "Best Safety Lies In Fear" the Bloody Crumpets took to the stage. The Bloody Crumpets being Captain Maggots, the Blessed Contessa and the Naughty Veronica. Emilie Autumn's... fellow cast? We'll get onto that. Last to grace the stage - Queen of Rats, star of the show, Emilie Autumn. As "Best Safety..." segued neatly into Four O'Clock, the show got well and truly under way.
(and now at Nottingham Station)
I'm tempted to to a run down of the whole show, track by track because it rather needs it to capture just how theatrical it was. However, that isn't how reviews are supposed to work, so let's just pick out the important bits. The set was heavy on new, as-yet-unreleased tracks from upcoming album Fight Like A Girl. Normally this irritates me, but the point of this tour is as a sort of album preview, so we'll let that slide. Besides, they were pretty great tracks. "Girls, Girls, Girls" has a wonderful dark carnival vibe, while Gas Light harks beack to EA's Enchant album. My personal favourite of the new tracks though has to be Time For Tea. Sounds lovely, yes? Dainty, yes? Think again.
What's different about Emilie Autumn's shows (at least compared to what I've personally seen before) is this: this is music as theatre. It's not just a group of people on stage playing music.
(and I think I just saw someone who was at the gig. Going by the attire, anyways)
Where was I? Ah, music as theatre.
(aaaand change platforms)
Music as theatre. Probably most noticeable on "Girls, Girls, Girls", which involved EA playing the role of guide in a tour of The Asylum, with the Bloody Crumpets as inmates.
(getting sidetracked by station stuff. Will resume once on train)
(ohmygod, I just saw a train leave the station exactly on time)
Ahem. It's now more than 3 hours since I got off the train and it's proving a little difficult to pick up my thread. Right, music as theatre it is. Well, we sort of covered that. Then there's the fact that not the entire show is songs. Each Crumpet got their own little segment. Captain Maggots introduced everyone (eventually. She rather struggled with Contessa). The Contessa lead the audience in a (supposedly) mystical chant involving something to do with fingers and toes which lead into the opening of God Help Me (wonderful track). Veronica, who has a background in burlesque if I remember rightly, performed a gorgeous feather fan dance to EA's instrumental track "Dominant" and then proceeded to 'corrupt' a pair of fans in the fan favourite Rat Game. (Look it up). Finally, Captain Maggots got a second shot at the limelight with some fantastic fire-hula-hoop-dancing-thing. There was fire. And hula.
This review has turned into a non-review and is in severe danger of degenerating into random babble, so let's bring it to a close. Closing the main set with new track One Foot In Front Of The Other (actual title? Maybe not.), the ladies left the stage to applause and shouts for more. So of course there was the inevitable encore, which consisted of two piano led tracks - the beautiful Mad Girl and then Thank God I'm Pretty which turned into an audience sing-along. Finally, the Crumpets rejoined EA on stage to perform a sort of farewell dance and when they finally left again the house lights came up to Monty Python's classic "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" which resulted in another audience sing-along and a lot of very happy fans. The only fault I can find is that the music was almost entirely played from a backing track, but given that it's very electronic based, I can just about forgive that. Besides, the theatrics more than made up for it and EA's voice is pretty much perfect live.
That'll do, yes? Here follows a just about correct setlist - some bits (in the middle especially) might be in the wrong order, but it'll do.
- Best Safety Lies in Fear (instrumental/sampled)
- Four O'Clock
- Dr Stockhill (spoken word) <- I'm informed this is the title, but might be wrong
- Fight Like A Girl
- Time For Tea
- How To Break A Heart (poem)
- The Art Of Suicide
- Liar
- Take The Pill
- God Help Me
- Dominant (instrumental)
- Girls, Girls, Girls
- Rat game
- We Want Them Young
- Gas Light
- One Foot in Front of the Other
- Encore: Mad Girl
- Encore: Thank God I'm Pretty
Oh, did I mention there was tea, biscuits and cake flying around? What other reason do you need to go to a show?
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