Fresh from their win at the Grammys, Ghost are taking to London’s Palladium for a special, one off-show on March 3rd. If their last London show is anything to go by, it’s set to be an incredible evening.
“The first thing that came up was The Beatles thing which was really cool,” starts one of The Nameless Ghouls on why they booked the show. “I also have a vague memory that I saw a musical there once, years and years ago. I don’t love every musical ever but there are ones I really do love. I enjoy the theatre world a lot so besides The Beatles, the second thing is The West End association. Shit, now we’re talking. Now we’re part of the genuine, touristy London. We’re part of the night of London. We’ve been longing all our life to get to that core, so that’s going to be fun. However, at the end of the day there are always elements in there that, when you’re standing there, it’s never like what you hoped for. It’s always something different.”
The Palladium is a seated venue but Ghost, a band constantly flouting convention, hope the audience will follow suit. “I genuinely hope they will stand up. Most of the times when we play seated houses in America, they stand up as soon as you start which makes things easier. We are very dependent on the energies of the crowd, as I assume many bands are. We are definitely the sort of band that if we have a bad audience,” he pauses. “Well, let’s say you’re playing a typical Tuesday where the venue is far out, there’s only one last train that everybody has to take and toll into the city dramatically gets more expensive after a certain time, you can definitely feel the crowd just waiting. You can see them put on their clothes during the last song and fuck, you don’t want that. It’s important that you have the crowd with you, so a seated room where people actually sit down is not super inspiring but as long as they stand up, it will all be fine.”
And as for the rest of the year, “touring, touring, touring. We’re touring non-stop the whole year basically. One thing we’re aiming for, which will be interesting, is during the spring tour we’re going to mix around the setlist a lot so whatever we’ve done tonight at Koko, its going to be different but the stage set will be the same. But then in the summer, just like every other band, we’re doing festivals. In France we’re doing Hellfest as one of the headling sets, so we’re going to do this completely new stage set that’s way bigger. We’re doing that at a very few festivals this Summer and then we’re going to take it on the road and see how that works out. The next time we come through London after the Palladium, it’s going to be something completely different.”
For more on Ghost, head here to read our interview with the band from the February issue of Upset.
