Photo: Steve Gullick
The ever-endearing Lucksmiths opened the show with their chipper pop, though were corrupted somewhat when given dubious mid-set shots of liquid by the headliner's magnetic drummer - what is this, "Okkervil Urine"?
Okkervil River's trajectory is on a slow-burning rise, with each visit to our shores seeing them play bigger venues and to larger crowds. While the band's recorded legacy is fantastically dense, deep and rewarding, their live shows are something else entirely, an utterly engaging mix of musical precision and spontaneous passion. The band is absolutely astute, equally adept at bar-band jauntiness or more serious and atmospheric sound making. They also seem to genuinely thrive on performing live. Firecracker drummer Travis Nelson in particular - who has been brilliantly described as "joy attached to a drumstick"- would appear to require a stage and a crowd more than oxygen and water to maintain his very being.
The fulcrum of Okkervil River of course is the acutely perceptive and slightly tortured soul that is singer and songwriter Will Sheff. On the one hand, the years of touring have given him this ragged rock frontman bravado which lets him stomp and strut his way through the more upbeat numbers such as 'Black', 'Pop Lie', and 'For Real', which gets the whole crowd throbbing. At a couple of points he urges us to clap along, once with a line that wouldn't sound out of place at a stadium: "Put your hands up for us - we put ours up for you!" Yet when the rest of the band exit the stage, leaving him to reach deep inside himself and wring every last drop of feeling out of a mesmerising version of 'A Stone', it's as if he is singing to you, and you alone. Amazing.
We get a particularly apt cover of 13th Floor Elevators' 'You're Gonna Miss Me' as encore - the previous night getting a Triffids cover and their modern classic-in-waiting, 'Westfall' - before a final coupling of 'Blue Tulip' and 'Another Radio Song' brings to a close a set that no one really wanted to end.
Andy Ryan
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