I've just got back from the UK album launch, and it was excellent.
I got there at 2.30pm, and the queue was packed. After waiting around for about an hour, we were let into the thatre.
After a brief introduction, Clive Davis came on (note for UK fans: he looks uncannily like Frank Butcher).
He gave a talk about he had got involved with the Artist, and how excited he was about the project, and then showed a video.
The video featured Clive, The Artist & Londell talking about the album.
The Artist talked about how funky he thought Sheryl Crow was, and that he first decided he wanted to work with Gwen Stefani after seeing No Doubt on Letterman, when she jumped up on his desk.
He also talked about how great a musician Ani Di Franco is.



After the video, Clive then played the Neptunes remix of TGRES, and it went down really well.
He also played a short snippet of a more uptempo remix, which also seemed to go down well.
After that, he introduced the album, playing most of the tracks, each preceeded with a short introduction about the song.



It was during this section that many of the audience beagn to get restless. I suppose this was quite understandable, as most journalists and retailers have already heard the album,
and most guests were under the impression that they were there just to see the Artist perform.
Eventually, one guest got up and shouted at Clive Davis asking why it was taking so long. Clive got very angry (he is obviously a passionate fan of the music),
and the guest eventually left. All of the tracks got applauded, but it felt like the audience were not absolutely wild.



I suppose with any audience of industry types, it takes a lot to impress them, as they've seen it all before.
After a brief wait, the lights went down, the curtains went down, and - Bang! - the NPG launched straight into Let's Go Crazy, and the audience (in this all-seated theatre) got straight to their feet.
His guitar playing was wild - at one point he went up the stairs into the audience - but still the crowd remained relatively subdued.
He then went into She's always in My Hair, much to the delight of my friend (it's her favoruite and she's never heard it live before)
I can't remember teh exact order, but he played an extended jam (featuring vocal snippets from Love 2 the 9s, Face Down and Pop Life), which eventually went into Kiss.
For this, he dragged 6 people up from the crowd, and got them each to sing out a line. It worked really well as a way to get the crowd going.
U Got the Look and a stunning guitar-led version of Gett Off followed. Then he dragged a red-haired girl out of the audience, who sang with him on a blues number that I don't know, but strated off with a line about a Purple House.
I don't know if she was a plant or not (I saw her outside later, and she claimed that she wasn't, and that she'd been waiting to do that 'since she was 6'), but it was excellent, with her singing lines, and him talking back to her with his guitar.
The crowd lapped it up - it was hilarious. After another extended jam shocasing each of the NPG, the main show finished.
It didn't take long to get him back, when he performed TGRES (with the help of a tape) and Baby Knows.
He finished the show off with another Jam between him & Larry. By thsi stage the cynical english industry crowd were well and truly convinced, and him and Larry came into the audience, dragging people down onto the stage to join them.
Eventually there was about 30 people dancing round the stage with them, and really jumping to a climax, and then it was suddenly all over.



He did very well to win over atired and cynical crowd, but the atmosphere was great bybthe end everyone was really buzzing. It was a great show, and I can't wait for his shows next year now.