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I saw him last year at the Indigo2, where he played a shorter but tighter set. My friend and I agreed that last time was more consistent whereas this time was quite up and down. I felt bad for him when he was struggling to play guitar or coming into songs at the wrong time, but also I think you're right that at times it was really special. There were also loads and loads of the golden oldies (Life in Vain, Silly Love, Don't Let the Sun Go Down, Living Life, Hey Joe, Rock'n'Roll, Speeding Motorcycle, True Love, Casper, Worried Shoes) and a good smattering of new ones too.

As for the backing band, I thought that some of Fyfe's piano playing was a bit showboaty and seemed to maybe put daniel off once or twice and David from the Wave Pictures had an embarrassing moment during Come Together (Daniel: GUITAR, David: CLANG) but they were generally really good.

I think you're a bit damned if you do and damned if you don't. The barometer is Daniel himselfs reaction and he seemed cool with it, especially Wave Pics.
The venue helps too, on paper I'd take Union Chapel over Indigo2 for any artist.

i think i'd go see him just for that.

Have always been unsure about seeing Daniel live, as as much as i love his music i always felt uncomfortable about seeing a man struggling so much on stage. I'm glad i decided to go though - ramshackle, emotional, moving songs delivered brilliantly with a fantastic bunch of backing musicians. Great stuff.

but didn't enjoy the latter part with the Wave Pictures as much, my attention began to slide big time. But a good night overall, Life in Vain was incredible.

I thought Laura Marling was really boring.

But did anyone else get put off by that spanner from the Wave Pictures?
Spent half his time peering over Daniel's shoulder & giggling at his lyric sheet, and the other half exchanging little glances & laughing with the bassist...
He just didn't seem to get it at all, seemed to find the whole thing hilarious :(

There's no way Dave from the Wave Pictures would have been laughing at Daniel - he was just ridiculously happy to be up there playing with him. For those guys, the thought of playing with Daniel Johnston would never have been something they would have believed they would ever get to do. He just couldn't keep the smile off his face and seemed to be smiling and looking at the bassist as if to say "can you believe this??!"
I found the evident joy in all three totally infectious and it really added to the enjoyment of the second half.
That's the fourth time I've seen Daniel and he seemed in pretty good shape, certainly the best mentally I've ever seen him. And he played so many of the hits!

The Wave Pictures dude clearly wasn't laughing or smiling for any other reason than he was VERY happy to be there, backing up Daniel J! And he kept checking the lyric sheet to see where they were in the song. Given they can't have had very long to learn those tunes, I thought the Wave Pictures did a fantastic job.

I just thought I would stop by and mention that there is a DVD with the above title available of Daniel's appearance at the Union Chapel in July 2007, with James Yorkston and Adem Ilhan. I have to declare an interest as I produced and funded it. It was a real labour of love. We spent about 18 months making sure it was ready to release, and I funded it mostly with money saved from stacking shelves at Tesco.

We got some fantastic reviews, including five stars from Record Collector and Revue Pop Moderne. Unfortunately
we never managed to get a UK distributor as the release was too close to the collapse of Entertainmet UK/Woolworths. As a result there was not much promotion for the release and it went a bit under the radar. But you can get it from Amazon or direct from us at Adjustable Productions, and there are trailers on Youtube.

I had been hoping to go last night, but I have been a little unwell recently and was nervous I would end up infecting the touring party with my germs.

Cheers,

Robert Wheeler
Producer,
'The Angel and Daniel Johnston - Live at the Union Chapel'

was it because it was halloween?

How many were there metalmickey? I think the show was added to the schedule fairly late in the day due to the sell-out of the Union Chapel show. I think the Union Chapel normally sells itself out with little promotion as they have a very loyal following. The Bloomsbury Ballroom was probably not quite an attractive proposition.

I think that is part of the reason that the O2 Indigo was not quite packed out last year. The Indigo does have a pretty poor reputation with a lot of music fans, even though it does look the part on TV. Similarly, venues with 'ballroom' in the title don't inspire me much hope in the accoustics etc.

The Union Chapel is a pretty fantastic venue for an artist like Daniel. And the venue does a lot of other stuff for the community too. I hope Daniel packs out everywhere else on the tour!

I've heard that it was magical.

saw em in leeds. daniel was amazing but the backing band ....hmm...lots of showboating by the guitarist - solos and filling up space with pointless 'licks'. i would have shouted "STOP SHOWING OFF" if i didn't think it would have upset Daniel. also the band were laughing and joking during songs and pissing about. complete lack of respect - they are not fit to lace his shoelaces

i reckon all the riffs and stuff would've been planned out :/ they were just enjoying themselves innit (was at leeds too).

but anyway, i loved it a lot