Lo those five years ago, he was to be the Big Headliner, he was the person whom we hoped would most give name recognition to our brand-new, small (we thought it would be!), experimental event.
Half a decade later, regardless of who we bring in, or what's going on--this man fills up every stage area we put him in, even when that area's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.
There's a secret I don't talk about: In many ways, Voltaire exemplified my original idea of what Wicked Faire could be.
What he does is cross genres like it's nobody's business, and pretty much as if the lines don't exist. Which is damn weird for someone who plainly comes out of a particular subculture. But even back in the day, they called him the Clown Prince of Goth. It was clear to me that this was a man whose music would appeal to pretty much anyone who liked things at least a little bit outside the ordinary. His music was often funny, but it was also magnetic; it was passionate without losing control, beautifully modulated without ever appearing mechanical. And you could take a crowd of any kind of weirdos, and even if they'd never heard him before, they'd stop, and they'd listen, and then they'd want more--to hell with whether this was "goth" or "comedy" or "punk" or "Rennie" or what-have you; to hell with it, this is good, and we want it!
If that's not my dream for how people will experience Wicked Faire, I don't know what is.
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