This isn’t a concert”, bellows Andrew WK halfway through his set, “This is a party!” “This” also has all the hallmarks of unadulterated twatrock – prepubescent fans trying their best to look over 14 or risk a lifetime’s Zodiac ejection. But it’s not. WK himself is so very polite: “You’re not like an audience,” he tells us at one point. “You’re like my family.” He sprinkles us with Evian instead of effluence, and thanks us profusely for our “most gracious welcome.” It’s been two long years since ‘I Get Wet’ and the joys of ‘Party Til you Puke’. ‘Got to Do It’ may have been eclipsed by ‘Born to Do It’ in Avid Merrion’s books, but Andrew WK has managed to hang on to his ‘Real Fans’ – who, in the meantime, have endured and survived puberty. As a tribute to their lost innocence, he sticks to what we know best, playing what the audience wants in the order it wants it – from the romance of ‘She is Beautiful’ to the climax of the night, ‘Party Hard’. He introduces only a couple of songs from the new album, The Wolf; and although ‘Never Let Down’ shows no rebate in the impacted spinal mosh trauma, lines like “I don’t wanna make love I just wanna make sex” are disappointing when matched with the old stuff. Second disappointment of the night: the scallies are perturbed by the appearance of three men in tight, white vests, and their leechlike fixation to the tour bus. Even the microdresses get the hint and go home, wondering why the penny never dropped with the Evian. “His hair’s not even greasy,” says one. They wander off, to drown their sorrows on Oxford Romance. Partying Hard just doesn’t seem so appealing anymore.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003
