A Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm gig from the perspective of a non-geek

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 17 June 2011 19:47:52

Last Friday The Mister and I went over to Manchester to a Jonathan Coulton gig, and he was supported by Paul and Storm. As ever, an amazing gig, but I felt that it would be appropriate to make a few observations.

1. I have never seen so many geeks in the same place at the same time. Now I know that this is mainly because Jonathan Coulton has rather obsessive fans who seem to know the lyrics to every single one of his songs and as he is so internet based the geek thing makes sense. Mind you, it is unusual (outside of sci-fi conventions or some other sadness) to see so many of them in one place.

2. Previously mentioned geeks are mainly blokes who struggle with personal hygiene. The gig smelt rather like a teenage boys bedroom. It is obvious that most of them only have a vague grasp of washing. Not nice.

3. Quite a lot of them seem to have problems with impulse control - especially the bloke a couple of rows in front of us who seemed to have some sort of heckler tourettes and kept lifting up his arms and displaying his sweaty smelly pits. Grim.

4. In general there seemed to be some problem with social interaction from the audience. Maybe it is because of the amount of time they all spent perving at computer screens all day.

5. As ever I was ashamed to realise that I am a little bit more geeky that I would like to be. I just got too many of the damn jokes.

Having said all that it was a fantastic gig, but not quite as good as the one we went to last year. I have decided that that was partly as I had never seen them before so I had no idea what to expect, but also because it was in the most stunning venue, the Union Chapel in London. It is absolutely amazing and has the most divine acoustics. Therefore any venue that did not match up to that was going to be a disappointment. This gig was in what looked more like a school auditorium - no contest with last years venue!

So, here is my favourite song from the gig at Union Chapel last year. Just gorgeous. By the way, if you like people like Tim Minchin then you are pretty much guaranteed to like Paul and Storm... Look them up on YouTube!

Video...

(Any ideas on how to embed a YouTube video on here?.. then I can link the song!)