Tonight I got a late Christmas gift – a ticket to see Goldfrapp at the Union Chapel, Highbury. They were amazing. The band arrived on stage wearing all white, accompanied by a string section and a harpist, shortly followed by Alison Goldfrapp wearing a pink babydoll nightie (yes, really!).
The set started with a number from their new album, Seventh Tree, which wouldn’t have been out of place as the theme for one of those 1970s Hammer Horror movies that starts off in a perfectly normal suburban setting and then slowly descends into devil worship and sacrifice. There were a lot of numbers from the second and third albums throughout, so there was a big 70s aura to the entire set – some of those songs sound like the band are channeling T-Rex or Bowie at times…
The crowd was very interesting – not many young people but plenty of 30 and 40 somethings of all persuasions. No wonder I like them so much, I’m obviously in appropriate company. I should finish by saying something about the acoustics – I’ve been to lots of gigs where the band sound like they’re playing in the bottom of a biscuit tin, but the Union Chapel is at the opposite end of the scale. I could hear every vocal nuance and every fret sound from the guitars. What a great gig