And it FEEEEEEEEEELS like jealousy (Will Young review)

On Sunday evening (not yesterday, the one before that) I ventured out in TERRIBLE weather and battled with transport nonsense to get to Hammersmith to see Will Young with kikishua.

IT WAS SO GOOD!

Support was Lemar, who I do like a lot, and even more after seeing him live – he just had one guy playing acoustic guitar as his musical background, and he was a very engaging artist, chatting a lot and he has a great voice. Also he’s from London so points for that :D /shameless favouritism.

His current album, The Letter, is out now – www.lemar-online.com/
 
Haven’t bought it yet but based on the songs we heard, would recommend.

Now, the main event. Will Young has been one of my favourite pop stars since he won Pop Idol. This is the first time I’ve seen him live as him, but I have seen him in Cabaret (excellent). I love his voice and although my tastes tend more towards electronic music, there are so many songs of his that I love. I also love his visual sensibilities – you can tell he is an artist that loves making music videos (a lot of them basically seem to be AU fic, really). Music videos are sort of my first fandom (a fandom of one, in a way, because it’s difficult to find people into the same music videos as you are, haha) so finding artists that actually like making them is great for me. Anyway, I’ll link at the end.

It’s always difficult to guess how a solo artist will stage a live show, because although they have a band, the band are usually pretty anonymous. I really liked the staging of this show, which involved a lot of plastic sheeting, and Will being dressed as some weird monk. Oh and the stage crew being dressed in white boiler suits (band and backing singers were just in normal clothes).

The first song was Brave Man, and was sung with Will facing to the right of the stage, singing into a wind machine blowing things at him. It was a really interesting visual choice to start off with (I did think the whole show was about five minutes of planning off being a total concept show with singer Will trapped in a dystopia, and I would have been there for that).

After that the staging became more traditional, and there was a fair amount of audience interaction which was great (although audiences everywhere could learn that just because you can shout at the artists doesn’t mean you should), and the songs were fantastic. He’s just got an amazing voice.

The set list was great, although I was disappointed there was no Hopes and Fears because I love that song. However that was the only song I missed, and hearing the other songs (Who am I! Jealousy! LOVE REVOLUTION!) live was just brilliant.

The only thing I thought was a bit odd was ending on Leave Right Now, which I absolutely LOVE but which is a sad song to have at the end of your show. However it was the last night of the tour and the second (!) encore and it was fantastic.

Anyway, videos! In no particular order:

( cut because embeds )

Hyper Japan

Bit late with this week's entries due to being out and about, so I've got two things to talk about.

First up – Hyper Japan Christmas Market. My best friend organised this trip and I went along having not looked it up much beforehand, but expecting something like the Language Show (trade show for linguists/language teachers etc) but with a bunch of anime. I possibly should have done a bit more research.

So we headed off to Shadwell, which is a really odd nothing place to be honest. I mostly use it as a place to change from the DLR to the Overground when I’m on my wanders. However they do have Tobacco Dock, which is a pretty interesting building in its own right.

Tobacco Dock is a Grade 1 listed warehouse that was converted into a shopping centre in 1990 at a cost of £47 million (OK THEN). It was supposed to be the Covent Garden of East London (which you can see in the design of the place) but it failed and went into administration (I’m not sure if it ever actually opened). It’s now used as a corporate events space, and apparently has been used in quite a few films and TV shows. I suppose with Earl’s Court being redeveloped (is that still on?) it will become even more popular. It’s an interesting building, although some of it is open to the air so it’s flipping freezing on a chilly morning.

So when we got there it turned out that it was basically just a big pile of shops and stalls selling a) anime and anime-related stuff, b) traditional Japanese clothes, c) modern Japanese design, d) all the Gothic Lolita stuff you could want, e) a truckload of jewellery, f) another truckload of soft toys and g) any random shit that didn’t fit in to the above.

There were also stalls selling food, so obviously we got a sushi snack before making our first go round. And then we spent some money. And then we spent some more money. And then we talked to a nice lady from Inside Japan Tours about the trips they offer. And then we spent some more money.

We also went to the food stalls and I had takoyaki, which I just absolutely love (deep fried octopus balls).

And then we spent some more money. BUT! I got some amazing stuff. I was going to try to post pics here but instagram is an arse to embed, so please see my actual instagram: www.instagram.com/hanlondon

It goes from the blurry gold and green earrings (my phone refused to play ball) to the cute purple alpaca <3. Also, follow my instagram if you like pictures of London, jewellery and crafts.