John Grant

To the Philharmonic Hall tonight to see the mighty John Grant.

I've been anticipating this show for months and my excitement was at fever pitch by the time we arrived. Not only has 'The Phil' just undergone a pretty major refurb (it's looking good) but Grant's albums 'Queen of Denmark' and 'Pale Green Ghosts' have been amongst the most played here at Booknerd Towers over the past few years. I never tire of them.

I hadn't seen Grant perform live before but had heard great things about his stage presence and I was not disappointed. For this tour he's accompanied by the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the country's only full-time chamber orchestra, and they (alongside Grant's regular band) made tremendous bedfellows! The show was 2 hours of unadulterated bliss - Grant's amazing baritone voice is a thing of beauty. What a set of pipes he has! And he's no mean keyboard player either. I really enjoyed his moments at the grand piano.

His trademark songs blending great tunes with lyrics of heartbreaking honesty, humour and perfectly deployed sweariness were magnificently arranged for the orchestra and he played four new numbers too of which No More Tangles and Global Warming stood out in particular.

The setlist also included, in no particular order:

GMF (NB This link comes with one of those 'Parental Advisory' stickers attached...!)
Glacier
Queen of Denmark
You Don't Have To
Marz
That's the Good News (an unexpected choice, stylistically, which worked brilliantly with the orchestra)
It Doesn't Matter to Him
Pale Green Ghosts
Drug (the sole nod to Grant's earlier work with The Czars)
Sigourney Weaver
Vietnam
It's Easier
JC Hates Faggots ("I haven't sung this is a long time. I'm no longer this angry. But I expect I can summon up the anger..." He did. Brilliantly.)
Where Dreams Go to Die

And several others which have escaped me for the moment.

Inexplicably there was no Blackbelt... ("Etch a Sketch your way out of this one...")

A magical night. We knew it was going to be special when a man on the bus handed Spokes an origami bird that he'd made from his bus ticket. Spokes later passed it on to a macaroon seller at the street market. I wonder whether he then passed it along to anyone else...


Incidentally, this is the second time John Grant's appeared in my blip journal. But the first time was a bit of a cheat!