Patrick Watson

It’s hot as hell in The Borderline. Sweat collecting into droplets, dripping down your back. And there’s simply no escape. Patrick Watson’s name has found its way into so many ears and homes, and then back onto people’s lips, that we’re crammed into formation in here, soaking in our own brine. It’s utterly degrading and disgusting; we must be somewhere worthwhile.

“Desole” it says on Patrick’s t-shirt, like this bastard has anything to be sorry about - from the first chords no one cares how hot it is or how much they need the toilet or how shitty their day at work was because they’re being taken somewhere else entirely. It’s tempting to suggest heaven, but that’s not hitting the right tone. Patrick’s vocal may often scrape the sky, but as he smiles and jokes with the crowd, he’s altogether human, and that just makes this show even more powerful and astonishing.

Guitarist Simon Angell is centre stage, perched on a chair, endlessly fiddling with pedals and toys - he’s got more tricks up his sleeve than that blasted boy wizard. Towards the end of the set, he blows up a couple of balloons: one to rub against his strings, the other to deflate onto them, the mentalist. To his right, our left, Mishka Stein hides beneath a cap, tugging away on his bass. When he joins the fray, he often directs it, giving shape and aggression to the band’s rambling jams of bluesy white noise. Meanwhile, Robbie Kuster looks like he’s going to puke onto his drums, constantly lurching forward, puffing his cheeks out, engrossed in the moment.

These are real musicians, and Patrick, who is shoved stage right, allows them freedom to roam in his songs, which often seem to grow from invisible elements. The tiniest twinkle; the lightest breath. Yes, there’s Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake, Rufus Wainwright, Björk and Radiohead to be had here, but the sum total is like nothing that’s gone before it: a desperate, tense, fragile vision of modern times. It nails the zeitgeist by threading together vast swathes of music that have gone before it, and by allowing room for both sumptuous singles and jazz free-for-alls. Latest release ‘Luscious Life’ typifies the night - a relatively straightforward song smashed to bits as the band break out of the formula in the middle and riff off into the distance.

Watson himself has Buckley’s way with making his voice an instrument. His words are indecipherable, but the emotions he conveys in his husky cries are breathtaking, whether he’s busy filtering his vocal through a pedal or just letting it fly a cappella. (To end the show, he takes to the crowd, stands on a chair, and conducts us in an acoustic version of ‘Man Under The Sea’.) He lets his eyes roll back in his head, and his mouth goes slack as he opens it wider, wider, looking every inch like a pissed-up Irish tramp, lager going sticky in his black beard.

It all adds up to an entrancing evening, a virtuoso performance that has an overheated crowd rapt and in raptures. Close To Paradise is the album, and nearly everyone here will be buying it.

Photo by djenvert, from Flickr - click here for more work

Imagine Sammy Davis Jnr reincarnated as a French Canadian and you're halfway to defining the extraordinary stage presence of Patrick Watson. His voice is a luscious croon but it sounds as though it's coming through a mouthful of marbles. It's not a speech impediment - he's perfectly intelligible when he talks. But as soon as a song begins he reverts to indecipherable mumblings, alternated with a grating Chris Martin-style falsetto. When not bashing away at the piano, he also likes to sing through an effects pedal to create an ear-perforating cascade of shrieks and wails.

What's missing, though, is material developed enough for an audience to latch onto. His band seem to have embarked long ago on a progressive jazz odyssey, and their experimental meanderings married to Watson's scat vocals make for wearisome listening. It's like the fairground clatter with which the Guillemots open their live sets, except drawn out over a whole hour.

The best moments are the quietest. 'Weight of the World' begins as a ragged, harmonium-backed ballad worthy of Tom Waits, and set-closer 'Man Under The Sea', which Watson comes out to perform unplugged among the audience, is a spine-tingling triumph. The rest of the time I felt I was drowning in self-indulgence.