Live Review

Andrew WK – East Village Arts Club, Liverpool

• 31st Jul 2014

It must be really hard being Andrew WK. The constant battle with your inner psyche to ensure that you are partying 24/7 can’t be an easy thing to cope with.

Over the past few years, the Crown Prince of Party Metal has built up a global cult of devotees who rabidly devour every piano-laden offering he bestows upon them and tonight at the East Village Arts Club is no different. After a lengthy and rambling intro with more sirens than Toxteth Road on a Friday night, WK’s tour manager Blake shambles onto the stage looking like a Glaswegian Chuck Norris dressed head to toe in camouflage gear. We expect the house lights to go up, a band to appear, or the partying to begin in earnest. Only one of these things happens, and it’s not the lights or the band.

Clearly cutting back the costs of his touring budget, tonight it’s just Andrew WK and his keyboard. Well, it is if you don’t count Blake’s borderline-insane Duracell Bunny dance moves. More than capable of holding the stage on his own with his keys, WK’s choice to involve his tour manager in his show in the role of a less drug addled Bez-style hype man seems a bit of a strange one at first. After five minutes of watching Blake run around in circles, fist pump, grunt, growl, shake hands with the audience and generally just have a really bloody good time, it’s easy to see why he keeps him up there. The man looks like he drinks liquid fun and shits rainbows.

As the unstoppable setlist bulldozes it’s way through a constant wall-to-wall moshpit, it’s the big hit ‘Party Hard’ that really ignites the crowd and sends bodies flying over heads. At one point during ‘I Love New York City’ one plucky scouser finds his way to the stage and starts a chant of ‘I Love Liverpool’ as WK can only look on bemused at the utter chaos he’s presiding over.

Everyone in this room knows that this gig is ridiculous – the songs are ridiculous, the premise is ridiculous, WK’s incessant references to partying are ridiculous, but the glorious thing is that it’s all so much fun that nobody cares. There is zero pretense in the room, just a whole lot of partying. The finale of ‘I Get Wet’ results in a colossal stage invasion that sees WK buried in a mass of flesh and beaming smiles from all involved as they pogo around on the stage in front of the carnage below.

As we leave fist-pumping the night riding high on a wave of party, it’s impossible to shake the feeling that nobody really does party like Andrew WK – how one man manages to orchestrate this amount of joviality will remain a mystery, but for now we’ll leave you with some words of wisdom from the man himself that succinctly sum up the whole experience…

PARTY TIP: Think about how intense it is to be a woman.

– photo credit Matt Thomas

Venue: East Village Arts Club, Liverpool
Support Band: White Blacula, Spanish Announce Team