St Andrews Radio

Jeffrey Lewis + Withered Hand + Men Diamler – Venue 1, Student’s Union St Andrews. 11th October 2011 (or how I went to bed with a huge smile on my face after having had the best crash course about the French Revolution)

Caveat lector: this review will feature a slight rant. However, my personal motto is ‘Everything will be ok in the end – if it’s not ok, it’s not the end!’ and the evening completely abided to the saying: the audience had to literally be chucked out of the Union at closing time. What? Wait? Closing time you ask? For a gig that advertised door opening at 8:30 pm? Really? Call me uptight, but when you say ‘Doors open at 8:30pm’, people expect them to open at 9, maybe 9:30, but not 10. Surely not 10. Big minus: for the delay and extra sound check to last longer than the headliner’s performance itself. And sound check? What sound check? A constant stream of tech glitches plagued the entire gig. And yet, somehow, the evening was magical – Music was Love.

And no, my rant’s not over yet, but it goes on well into the first artist’s act. Not having introduced himself, I resorted to calling Men Diamler ‘Generic Bob Dylan wannabe #1, 30 years too late’. Reality check: you’re opening for an opening act to Jeffrey Lewis, in a very small town, that’s known as the ‘Bubble’. Don’t expect people to know who you are: you haven’t reached 1,000,000 views on youtube, you don’t have 348728 Facebook friends and you’re not Lady Gaga. Polite would be to introduce yourself. Music-wise, it’s awkward and hard to judge. The physical resemblance to a very young Robert Zimmerman is obvious, and so is the stylistic one. His a cappella is indeed impressive and, in spite of the adverse technical conditions, he managed to get his message across loud and clear. Maybe at times too loud, but definitely clear. Resembled Stephen Lynch a bit towards the end, oddly.

Rant over. How can you still be sad and angry when Withered Hand is playing? How can you not break into a hearty smile when you hear lyrics along the lines of ‘You stole my heart and I stole your underwear’ (true story, anybody)? Yes, one can’t expect to be happy when listening to death metal bands, but one can expect to be happy when a lovely singing voice is mixed with enthusiasm and dedication. Maybe I’m biased, having fallen in love with his songs after seeing him with Sam Amidon earlier this year. You know what? If one of his tracks doesn’t at least make you smile, let alone laugh or say ‘been there, done that’, I’ll buy you drinks, because you most likely need them. (Additional sound situation info: still awful, but Dan’s poking fun at that, so nobody gives a damn anymore…)

And last, but clearly not least, and obviously the reason most people are still in the Union at midnight on a Tuesday, Jeffrey Lewis and The Junkyard. When it’s said that he and his band need no introduction, they mean it. I have to confess my ignorance at not having known, prior to the night, who they were. But now I also have to confess that ‘Cult Boyfriend’ and ‘Slogans’ have been playing on my ipod since the small hours of the morning. Jarvis Cocker named him ‘the best lyricist working in the US today’ and he’s quite right. Did I also mention he draws comics books? And that he presented a couple during the show, one featuring aliens and another about the French Revolution, so as to show his solidarity for the Occupation (of the Principal’s House, for those who never turn their radio on)? (Update on the sound situation: still in tatters, but everybody is way too excitedly happy to notice.)

All in all, you know a gig is amazingly worth it not if it manages to move a mountain or to make Uni fees drop back to what they were, but when you realize that an hour had passed in 5 minutes or less. Music is Love, and, officially, we love Jeffrey Lewis!