kaliha | Review: The Decemberists, Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton

The 5th of October saw me, His Lordship and Greg and Pauline heading off to Wolverhampton's Wulfrun Hall to go and see the Decemberists. The last time I saw them was two years ago at ATP in Camber Sands where they previewed some stuff from of The Crane Wife.

After enjoying a quick meal in Quadrant we went over to Alchemy, as it's nice and quite (unlike the Little Civic or Reflex (shudder)) and it's nice and close to the Civic and the Wulfrun. It also has the added attraction of Pub!Cat. S/he's a big old black and white cat with massive whiskery chops and is very friendly. So much so that s/he jumped up on to the chairs where we were sitting for a real fuss. Of course we obliged and Pub!Cat loved it so much that s/he started to drool everywhere. Bless. (Including all over my leg, yuck)

It's the Decemberists! No really. Although Jenny is hidden by a badly positioned speak stack and the glow of light around the drum kit is John Moen (no, he hasn't ascended).

Set list was supposed to be:
Crane 3
Island
Gymnast
Yankee
Crane 1
As I Rise
Shankill
Culling
Valencia
Chimbly
PC 2
Sons & D's
Encore: Solo - Mariner

Culling was cut, we got an Irish folk song and 'My Only Sunshine' as sung by the rest of the band instead. And Mariner was lost and replaced with Clementine.

It seems the curse of food posioning (which afflicted Paul Smith at the Maximo Park gig on Wednesday also caught poor Colin too) who, around Shankhill, I think, rushed off stage leaving the rest standing there. They explained that poor Colin was suffering with "Internal Rumblings" and covered for him (with the folk song and Sunshine). He got a massive round of applause when he made it back though.

Colin was obviously not very well for the rest of the gig which got cut short a bit, Even with the encore it was over by 10.15 and we all got booted out.

Later on this appeared on their MySpace page. Well done Wolverhampton, you've caused them to cancel their tour. I wonder if we'll ever find out which restaurant they ate at so I can never eat there again.

Little bit sad that they played noting off Picaresque. It is my favourite of their albums, but what they did play was rally good.

Gig score 7/10
View score 9/10 (could see them for the entire time, yay for no tall people sitting n front of me)</td>
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