<&MR. WATSON AND THE WOODEN ARMS+'

I only just got back from seeing Patrick Watson and I can tell that it was really good! Great light show, good quality sound, nice audience. I have to admit that I haven't listened to Patrick that much even though I've known him for quite a while. It's just that I never reached the point of really loving his songs. But lately as I've been listening to him a bit more, because I knew I was going to see him, I've come to notice how much I like the layeredness of his sound. The musicians playing on the album add so much to the overall sound of the songs, I think it's really one of Patrick Watson's strengths. So it was nice to see he brought a pretty big group of people with him and it quickly became clear that especially the drummer is a true professional. Very energetic, he almost stole the show. Patrick's voice sounded lovely, very soothing and calm. The light show was comparable to that during Mew's concert a couple of weeks ago or to that of Final Fantasy. Lots of variation. They went a bit too far with the smoke, though, with the result that it got pretty warm and much warmer than I'm used to when going to a gig. Perhaps that was also due to the fact that I wasn't standing all too near to the stage. When I arrived it was already pretty crowded. I hoped that after Thus:Owls, the support act, people would move more closely towards the stage, but that didn't happen. So I tried to take pictures but had a hard time taking the pictures I wanted which was a bit of a shame. Still, some turned out pretty okay, although at the Mew gig I did a way better job. Near the end Patrick did a very special thing, but I won't go further into that here as I know some people reading this will be seeing him in the near future. So I'm not going to spoil the surprise :) I had heard before that Patrick was really good live, so I knew I could expect a high quality concert and that was exactly what I got. He played one of my favourite songs, Beijing very early on. Of course he did The Great Escape which I believe is his most well known song. Other than most artists Patrick actually told which song he was going to play before playing them which was good for me 'cause I'm not all too familiar with all of them. Some other songs that they played are Big Bird In A Small Cage, Where The Wild Things Are, Fireweed (at least, I think I remember him playing it, I could be wrong! :)), The Storm, Man Under The Sea and two brand new tunes. He played some more but right now I can't really remember those other songs. On Friday I'll be seeing Julian Casablancas. I'll make sure I'm standing front row. I'm so excited, it's gonna be great!

So here are some pictures. Not that great, but better than nothing at all!









I tried and tried! Better luck next time ;-)