Patrick Wolf, Ryan Adams and the nature of music and celebrity

Last Friday there was an hour long show of a Ryan Adams and the Cardinals performance on BBC4, which has made me relisten to the few CDs of his in our house, particularly "29". It was pretty stellar, despite the fact that most of the songs they played were off the new album, Easy Tiger, which I don't yet know or own.

I have some real reservations about those sorts of gigs however: I can't remember the name of the venue, but it looked to be a converted church, and wasn't your average hoi polloi gig. Instead, it appeared that a load of posh people were sat at circular tables with their bottles of wine, watching the entertainment in comfort. I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't seem right to play or watch a gig like that - not when you purport to be a rock'n'roll singer.

I felt similarly on the occasions that I've seen Gillian Welch and Joanna Newsom (at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and Leeds City Varieties): the Gillian Welch concert was the first I'd been to where I'd felt underdressed in jeans and converse. The folk there were dressed for the theatre, not for a gig. Obviously, you don't want to go mosh or jump around at these folk and country affairs, but I'd like to not feel like I've stumbled into some upper class concert where the audience (note, not "crowd") felt they had ownership over the artists.

I think it's that for most gigs I feel that I paying to see the act, whereas at these more upmarket venues, you get the sense that the artists are being paid to perform. I know that probably sounds like it makes no sense, but I can't really explain the difference any more clearly.

Anyway, Ryan Adams looked scarily clean-cut in this performance, and when he donned his sunglasses he bizarrely resembled a dark-haired Andy Warhol (see picture). He wasn't playing guitar, and so the vocals were honestly awesome, especially on their cover of "Down in a Hole" by Alice in Chains.

All this clean-cut business made me think about how disappointing it is for fans when whichever stars clean up their act. This infuriates musicians massively, because they like to think that their fans are only interested in the music - it's so much more than that!

Hilariously, it's this issue that Patrick Wolf - everyone's favourite young eccentric - has taken exception to. I say hilarious, because for Patrick Wolf more than anyone else, his entire persona is the package that is marketed and sold to would-be fans. Now, having read his fans' speculations on his personality, he's declared that he will resign from the music business because all he ever wanted to do was to make music. Sorry PW, but you can't be so suddenly naive and bite the hand that feeds you. Everyone who has ever liked music knows that it is as much about a cult of personality as musical endeavour.

That's why all us Ryan Adams fans are hoping that he's still as outspoken and interesting as he was when he was "on the edge", whatever that might mean . . .