Jeffrey Lewis and The Voltage live review: Anti-folk, Evil Dead 2, and my DIY hero
On an anonymous stretch of country road between North and West Yorkshire, the radio changed my life forever. It was 2015, and my 13-year-old self was sitting dejected in the passenger seat of my dad’s car when an American voice came over the airwaves, singing about sad screaming old men and the quality of English cafe culture in a style that I had never encountered before – somewhere between folk, punk, and indie rock. According to the radio, that voice belonged to Jeffrey Lewis, and for an alienated teen still finding his cultural feet in this world, he changed everything.
Manhattan, Lewis’ 2015 album, became an almost daily ritual for me in the years that followed; I have probably played that album more often than any other in my lifetime. However, it wouldn’t be until a few years later, in 2022, that I finally got the chance to witness this anti-folk hero in person when he visited The Lending Room in Leeds in support of Bad Wiring. That particular show, on a rainy September night, still stands out as an unparalleled highlight within my gig-going experiences, so Lewis’ return to Leeds this year has been marked on my calendar for quite some time.
It was a busy night at the Brudenell Social Club; the main room was occupied by gangs of greying punks eager to hear the stylings of local heroes The Mekons, while Lewis’ devotees were sectioned off into the Community Room. After a rousing set from The Awkward Silences, Lewis shuffled onto the stage and began setting up his own equipment.
It is easy to romanticise the idea of DIY musicianship, and I don’t know whether Lewis himself attaches much importance to tuning his own guitar, plugging in his own pedalboard, or setting up a projector without the aid of roadies. However, the sight of his battered, sticker-covered guitar and four guitar pedals affixed to an old plank of wood did make all the other bands I have ever seen at the Community Room – with their teams of technicians and tour managers – seem a little superfluous.
I have written about Lewis’s work multiple times in the past, but the very first was for my now-defunct fanzine, Headaches, for which I interviewed him a number of years ago. In a brief bout of narcissism, I wondered whether the songwriter kept the zine or the stickers I posted to New York in my teenage years. My questions were answered when Lewis opened with the track ‘Things That People Give Me’, detailing his history of throwing letters, gifts, and zines into the trash upon opening. That was me told.
Still, I was so entranced by this songwriting master, standing less than a metre away from me, that I could hardly focus on anything else. Being a music journalist, it is easy to become jaded or desensitised by live performances, and yet I–along with the rest of the packed-out Community Room–could not help but hang upon every word that left the performer’s mouth.
In addition to tracks taken from Lewis’ latest record, The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis, the setlist also featured some of his earlier work, with the 1998 masterpiece ‘The East River’, along with ‘Roll Bus Roll’ being notable highlights of the evening. His backing band, The Voltage, exited and reemerged onto the stage as needed throughout the night, but they certainly made their presence known on the tracks which demanded a full band.
In addition to his extensive songwriting repertoire, Lewis also took time out of the set to perform three stories (a sci-fi tale, a retelling of The Great Gatsby, and a truncated version of Evil Dead 2) in musical form, accompanied by illustrations projected onto the back of the stage. For a man who has written lyrics like “Despression, despair, I’ll see you there,” and “How come every day I wake up and I wish I was dead,” Lewis seemed to be in high spirits throughout the show.
His illustrated stories, spontaneous remarks, and his chemistry with The Voltage, aiding in creating an incredibly warm, wholesome atmosphere at Brudenell, so much so that even some of Lewis’ most melancholic offerings seemed to be imbued with a certain sense of hope.
Towards the end of the show, Lewis relayed to the audience that he was initially under the impression that he would be performing in the main room of Brudenell, where The Mekons had set up shop. In tribute to the post-punk pioneers, Lewis and his gang erupted into a cover of The Mekons’ ‘Where Were You?’. When coupled with the Gang Of Four cover Lewis performed at The Lending Room back in 2022, it seems as though the performer has a certain appreciation for the post-punk history of Leeds.
After firing off a few Bad Wiring-era classics like ‘Exactly What Nobody Wanted’, followed by more recent offerings ‘Just Fun’ and ‘100 Good Things’, Lewis drew his incredible set to a close. Like any self-respecting DIY artist, the songwriter did not subject the crowd to the charade of a phoney encore, instead opting to close out the night with a rendition of ‘What I Love Most In England (is the Food)’, the very same song which had first introduced me to the anti-folk mastery of the songwriter on the radio all those years ago.
