So yesterday was the Jonathan Coulton(website) and Paul & Storm(website) concert at Manchester Academy. I’ve been waiting a long time for Coulton to come over this way (he never writes, he never calls…) but it’s got to be said, it was worth it. Call me shortsighted, but I’d never realised just how much his audience is biased towards the Y chromosome; admittedly, he sings about robots, evil overlords and mathematical functions but yeah, whatever.
Paul & Storm were a surprise for me. I mean, their songs didn’t have the geekily identifiable vulnerability of Coulton’s, but they made up for it with pirates. It was a beautiful, beautiful moment when they asked for a “dejected arr”, “surprised arr”, as well as “perverted arr”, and the audience to a man nailed it. When they asked for a “William Shatner arr” the guy on the front row was rightly presented with a packet of Haribo Starmix (Starrrrmix?) when he correctly stood up and screamed “Kharrrrrrrrn!“, and I think we’re getting an accurate image of the atmosphere here. The only thing that surpassed the chaos of pirates (new james bond title?) was the Rickroll at some point in the gig, though I’m not going to let slip where.
Another thing I’m not going to tell you is who the surprising celebrity guest was, though I’ve no idea if it’s even recurring. Put it this way though, there was a squeeeeee from the few female members of the audience that was just about audible over the roar of approval from the guys. Who knows, if you pay careful attention you might be able to figure out who it is from this blog. And if I’m impressed by a celebrity, you know it’s good.
Coming soon, possibly; blurry pictures of Coulton performing that could equally be bigfoot.
Stacking Cattle 