This has to be a first. W&H would like to present DANIEL POWTER with a well deserved 1/10 for total and complete lack of musical talent, and 10/10 for an (albeit unwitting) full on, hilariously pant-wetting performance. So by my reasoning that averages around 5/10.
Daniel Powter's 'music' is typical boy-band derived, overtly heartfelt bollocks, full of the requisite misty-eyed gazes at the ceiling, typical Moss Bros poses (checking the wrist watch, swinging the golf club), and the semi-orgasmic vocals most pop singers utilize to in order to convey 'sincerity'.
The support acts were alright, I suppose - although their names eluded me - the first one sang like he was about to drop his chips, and the other sang like he was being burnt alive. When I said they were alright, I really meant they were bloody awful. I was just trying to be nice.
So after one of the most shameless displays of piano bashing, guitar busking, and vocal abuse I've ever seen, on strutted Signor Powter. And so began the high-pitched screaming and yelling. And then the females in the audience followed suit.
Strange really, he looked so tall and manly as he strode towards the keyboard, straddling the stool, and slapping his thigh - blowing kisses at the audience, and flashing lots of photogenic toothy smiles left right and centre. But when he started singing it got confusing because this high pitched squeaky noise, like a Chipmunk on helium, came out of his mouth.
It was just one schmoozing, cheesy punch in the stomach after another. At one point he sang (in his chemically engineered voice), "We can do." [band drops out for dramatic effect] ".the ONE NIGHT STAND!" the screams were deafening. The strange thudding noise was the sound of girls fainting en masse.
Better still was the dialogue between songs. "Yeah you guys, well, let me tell you something, way back I was heavily, heavily into drugs." [I imagine that means he was in the same room as someone smoking a spliff once.] "Yeah, yeah I know," he said to no-one in particular, shaking his head and looking at the floor, "It's no big deal. But this next song, um, it's kind of about a friend of mine who's not around anymore."
Cue the music: a cheery up-tempo version of the Neighbours theme tune, with a chorus that went, and I'm not joking, "Jimmy gets high tonight!!!" WHOO, YEAH, ALRIGHT! (ad Lib.).
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A more preferable version could have been: "Jimmy got addled on acid and spent 5 hours under a coffee table chewing his fist and dribbling, but not before wetting himself, tonight. Alright."
There were quite a few more cringy drug references dropped on the audience, and a couple of comments about how his parents "fucked up". Honestly, it was all on his sleeve tonight, his 'Drug Hell', his parents "screwed up marriage", "Jimmy".
But he was also 'full of love', (he actually told a fan in the crowd to shut up while expressing this), and he introduced every band member as his Best. Friend. Ever. "Hey, you guys, I gotta tell ya," he gushed, "When you're in all these weird places that don't speak English," [Foreign countries?] "With these guys, I always feel at home on stage." What a guy.
And so we continued to watch Daniel Powter with the same morbid fascination as one would experience while observing an autopsy. Of course, he actually can't play the piano at all (quel surprise) - he employs a session musician to play beneath him while he ponces around Middle C using both index fingers, like an ape at a typewriter. To people who didn't know any better it might have looked like he possessed more than a modicum of talent. Frankly, I felt sorry for the session musicians who had to play his offal
night after night.
By the time he reached his finale, I had stomach cramps from laughing so much. Better still, while singing 'Had A Bad Day', he held the microphone towards the audience, the band dropped out, and the crowd started singing the (rather long) chorus. But no one really knew any words beyond the song title, which said it all really.
But despite my rantings, we had a great night - forget Jongleurs, you just want to get to a Powter gig for some top class unwanton hilarity.
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