Gothic Music, Voltaire Style

Friday night—technically Saturday morning—was Voltaire’s gothic concert, which he performed clad in his signature matte black top hat. The crowd was captivated right away by a song from Voltaire’s newest album, Raised by Bats. Also on stage was a drum kit, which sat unused above Voltaire’s head as he played his electric acoustic guitar. Soon after, the artist proclaimed that he wanted the night to be “a real professional show,” so he played the crowd-pleasing song “Brains.”

As the song continued and the lights swept over the audience, a sea of people from every corner of geek culture could be seen. Voltaire then dove into the next song, “The Mechanical Girl,” until suddenly the music stopped. He then yelled to the crowd, “Every time I forget a lyric, I have to take a drink,” and he took a swig. By the time the concert was over, Voltaire needed to take seven lyric-slip swigs.

Voltaire later announced to the audience, “Let’s pretend it’s midnight on Nerdy-Gras, and do something that we normally wouldn’t do.” Then he dove into “Captains All” and split off half-way through into “Let it Go” from Frozen, before finally returning to finish “Captains All.” Then as a treat, Voltaire performed a new song that the group had recently recorded.

Near the end, Voltaire played “The U.S.S. Make S*** Up,” which he referred to as “a song about Star Trek that doesn’t make me cry.” Then he tore into the Doctor Who–inspired “It’s Bigger on the Inside.” Soon after, Voltaire addressed the crowd, proclaiming, “No matter how weird you are, there’s always someone weirder here.”

For the finale, Voltaire invited 50 people onto the stage to help him sing the last song, handing out doubloons as access passes.  While waiting for the lucky ones with doubloons to congregate on stage, Voltaire improvised a song. Then Voltaire played his big hit, “When You’re Evil,” during which the singer lap-danced on concertgoers one minute, then randomly stopped singing the next to give the crowd a chance to carry the tune with joy and enthusiasm.

Author of the article

Emmett Church is weird. REALLY weird. He's a high school student, and writes in his spare time, after finishing whatever engineering, software, or social problem is particularly interesting at the time. With straight "A"s in school and video game mastery, there are vey few problems that he can't handle. Except keeping his head in a Dragon Con crowd. Now THAT'S a challenge!

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