Lightspeed Champion/Patrick Wolf Tour Diary

Posted Tuesday, November 27, 2007 @ 03:22 in Events by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Boxcar children

And we're off! The joint Lightspeed Champion / Patrick Wolf tour has begun. Who tours by train? Dev Hynes does!

We left his Dalston London flat just after noon. Pulled aside by his letting agent on his way to meet a friend before taking off by train, Dev missed his scheduled train at 1pm and had to shell out for another train ticket. After arriving in the seaside town of Brighton, it was off to a radio session and then to the venue - St. George's Church in Kemp Town. While there are many venues that use "church" as apart of their name, but do in fact lean more towards gigs than God, St. George's Church was a proper church kitted out with bibles and religious information cards on its pews.

Dev was nervous due to many things - exhaustion from having stayed up until 5am the night prior watching Southpark and debating whether to watch episodes of Lost Season 3 on DVD with commentary while listening to the new Fat Joe single featuring Lil' Wayne, not having eaten, and the fact that he'd be performing solo with only an acoustic guitar for company. Soundtracking the stress was Patrick Wolf who was sound-checking just ahead of us under an effigy of Christ. We sat back and watched as he made his way from a Joni Mitchell cover on the piano, to stints checking his ukulele, violin, electronics, and a guitar - which he'd purchased because of it's beauty despite never having played one before. Sat on the other side of Dev was his bestfriend Fifi, who accompanied him on his tour prior handling his merch, and whom he sees everyday that he's not on tour.

Free on tour is a special three song Lightspeed Champion CD that includes Dev's cover of Patrick's track "Souvenirs." After singing along under his breath to Patrick's song "Magic Position" while Patrick sang into the mic in front of us, Dev got up and joined him to run through two duets of both "Magic Position" and "Souvenirs," with Dev handling the choruses of the latter while strumming along on his guitar as Patrick manned the verse and played the keys.

After running through half of two songs amounted to the completion of Dev's portion of soundcheck, we made our way downstairs to a classroom-esque setting that served as the evening's dressing room. Next door a tap dancing class provided us with not only tapping, but tunes off of Britney's latest offering Blackout. Yes! Cue karaoke by Patrick who made his way around the room reciting "Gimme More." While billed as a "solo tour," Patrick had quite the gaggle of guests - from management to a hairstylist who not only knew hair from color to extensions, but is quite the connoisseur of plastic surgery - running down a laundry list of the best plastic surgeons in relation to the augmented body part. Soon a girl turned up looking like an early version of Madonna who not only knew Patrick, but had also been host to party metal band Test Icicles (Dev's former band) after their first gig when they needed somewhere to sleep. Patrick uncle made his way in joyously exclaiming about how Patrick had made the tabloid gossip rounds after a private gig two nights prior in support of a new Fuji camera. Newspapers and page turning abounded.

Raised religiously, but not adhering to a specific faith, Dev had a pray then disappeared for a phone interview. Soon it was past his set start time and he was no where to be found - surprise, surprise; Dev has a special relationship with the descriptor "flakey." I caught Dev wandering the gallery, shouted at him while at the same calling him and soon he made his way onto stage sans the purple cape he brought along as an accessory.

His set included his two Lightspeed Champion singles and a bundling of covers - from fellow singer-songwriter Liverpool based Eugene McGuinness to the Strokes' "Heart in a Cage" - a band Dev has more than a mild obsession with. Sat on seats and on the floor directly in front of the stage, the audience watched on until the finish.

When given an initial itinerary as the tour is being done sans tour manager, it noted that Dev should catch the train at 10:30, but also highlighted his likeliness in missing it and provided further timetables. The plan to save funds was for us to make the one hour trip back to London in the evening and stay in Dev's flat so as to not have to shell out for a hotel. After the gig, Dev missed all possible six plus trains back to London.

More from the tour later.

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