aaamusic | On 16, Apr 2012

God help me… As a casual fan of the Victorian Industrial Emilie Autumn I can’t help but feel disappointed. And for the first time in my life I have actually thought to myself ‘maybe I’m just too old to get it’; that’s coming from an eighteen year old. A huge crowd of cheap wigs and lace amongst corset tops and striped shorts spills out onto the streets of Camden High Street; this forms the queue for this evening’s event. So we wait, over an hour early in this queue of nylon oddities and yet still a long way from the venue. It gets to 6:45 and the ticket tells me that the doors should have opened around 15 minutes ago, still it’s no big deal for now.

So we get into the venue and sidle up to the swarm surrounding the stage, which is a good way away but still we’ve got a much better view then a good 3/5’s of the audience. The stage is pretty small, still that’s nobody’s fault. You take a good look around because you have time to kill but you realise it’s getting pretty late and surely the show should be starting soon. Wrong answer, as well as getting into the venue late it seems that the show will be starting pretty late too. Still, we get treated to some twee musical numbers, such as My Favourite Things from the Sound of Music and everything doesn’t feel so bad.

As you look around to kill more time you take notice of the surrounding audience members. The majority of the audience seems to be around 14-16 and dressed in Emilie-esque outfits with trademark heart teardrop make-up to match. You begin to feel pretty old and underdressed, like you’re not wearing enough polyester satin or something.

You also begin to notice how a lot of girls are covered in scars, some seeming to have great chunks missing from their flesh. Emilie’s music seems to attract people with mental and emotional issues, which if it helps them is a great thing, although you can’t help but wonder if Emilie’s music also glamorises the whole idea of mental disorder. And I am by no means saying that Emilie Autumn endorses self-harm or eating disorders, but the amount of videos and posts on the internet relating to Emilie Autumn concerning ‘Thinspiration’ is worrying. And when you look around yourself and see the ages of a lot of the girls who are fans of Emilie you begin to wonder how many of them are affected by this. It’s concerning.

Anyway back to the music. Well, you begin to wonder when the music is actually going to start. Avid fans cheer for Emilie to come on stage and she teases the audience several times, the show seems to be starting but then the background music starts again. You think to yourself, ‘this better be worth the wait.’

Being a fan of some of Emilie Autumn’s music I came to see, well music. I didn’t really get much music. I did, however, get a lot of burlesque dancing amidst strident synth and drum machines. Well, that’s a bit of a hyperbole but I did expect there to be more focus on the music. There was very little playing of instruments. The only live instrumentation I can recall was the violin intro for Liar and Emilie playing the harpsichord for the two encore numbers, Mad Girl and Thank God I’m Pretty. However, in the middle of Thank God I’m Pretty Emilie did get up to dance a bit and the music kept playing so I can’t guarantee that was live playing.

Although I get that Emilie’s live show style is supposed to be very much farce, I couldn’t take it seriously at all and that’s probably because it didn’t really offer much in terms of music. What the audience did get was burlesque dances aplenty and cake spat at them. However, if you do enjoy audience participation in the form of Veronica Varlow kissing a member of the audience in Katy Perry, I Kissed A Girl, style then this is the show for you. I by no means have any qualms about girls kissing girls but the way it was gone about seemed almost offensive towards genuine lesbians, although that’s just my own personal viewpoint. Emilie Autumn’s Bloody Crumpets seemed to be just as much part of the show as she was, kissing audience members, spitting cake and ‘seductively’ licking mid-air as they went.

In terms of singing, Emilie Autumn did not show her skills to the best of her abilities. The show seemed like it was supposed to be one big farce on the subject of mental illness but that does not mean that singing could not have been included; I mean, after all, it’s a music gig and one would expect some sort of instrument playing or singing. A lot of it seemed to be in the style of a musical, and this could have worked if it had been, well, good. We did technically get some singing but the quality of it was pretty poor. A lot of it was screaming and weak vocals hidden amongst piercing synth and drum machines while Emilie sat in a wheelchair. And Emilie Autumn is not a bad singer and is a pretty decent instrumentalist. Well, on the record she is.

Upon hearing The Art of Suicide performed live in such a way one began to feel quite embarrassed for ever thinking such a song was fairly good. Everything felt very clichéd. The performance of Emilie’s title track for the new album, Fight Like A Girl, was also a disappointment. By the end of Emilie’s encore of Thank God I’m Pretty you weren’t able to see any farce in the song at all. If I had to pick two words to sum up this gig, the words would be ‘false’ and ‘clichéd’.

If you’re an avid fan of burlesque and fan service this may be the show for you, but if you’re a fan of Emilie’s music, particularly her older work, you might want to look elsewhere.

★★★★★

Author: Rose Benge