Owen Pallett  
Union Chapel, London
25/01/2010

This, we’re obliged to point out, is no game. After all, The Artist Formerly Known As Final Fantasy has had to change his name lest an arcade firestorm rain down on anyone confusing him with a rather more computerised activity. Still, that doesn’t mean that he’s no fun at all – he’s got an accompanist this evening whose contribution at times amounts to little more than an enthusiastic whistle, he corpses as his voice unexpectedly falls to bits on a high note and muses that if that happened to Beyonce it’d be “the best thing in the world”. And he even politely declines a request from the audience on the basis that he’s going to be sticking to The Hits, as if he was, say, Lady Gaga – although he’s certainly not to be underestimated as a Serious Musician.

Pallett’s violin virtuosity is a breathtaking spectacle in itself (and, frankly, for lovers of flirty pizzicato, this is essentially an orgy), but it’s his ability to double and redouble back on himself with it, coupled with a penchant for applying those blurrily nimble fingers to keyboard chaos, that adds countless layers of fascination to proceedings. Old favourites like ‘He Poos Clouds’ – still the most undeniably-akin-to-the-Hidden-Cameras track in his oeuvre, excitingly enough – are showered in drama and grandeur, and the singer also encourages material from the more recent (and, he’s keen and correct to remind us, “not prog!”) Heartland such as the ‘Ashes To Ashes’-alluding ‘Lewis Takes Action’ or the cavern-plumbing adventure ‘The Great Elsewhere’ into near-peerless, lyrically rich and holleredly life-affirming epic esoterica that lends itself fearsomely-fittingly to the stateliness of the venue.

The moniker might have been amended, but its promises hold true; Owen Pallett is very much built to last, and, at his best, he’s positively the stuff of dreams.

Iain Moffat