JEFFREY LEWIS & LOS BOLTS | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Wed 11 Oct
Jeffrey Lewis is a hero of the antifolk movement that emerged in New York circa the late 90s. Even after a prolific recording and live career and just reaching middle age, that he’s still here delivering his witty, ramshackle tales of East Village misfits, dysfunctional relationships, the pitfalls of support tours, and everything in between is testament to what makes him such a distinctive artist with a sideways slant on life. Tonight he’s joined by Los Bolts for a full band show that adds punky muscle and keyboards to this offbeat set of songs.
A few songs in and he’s already offering us a ‘commercial break’ in the form of chortle-filled surreal comic book story Champion Jim told on PowerPoint slides: killed by his arch nemesis Sam Celery, Jim rebuilds himself as a head in a boot who “learned how to play guitar just with his smile” and “do most of the farmwork with his chin”. The disarming Seattle is lifted from his 2001 debut album The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane; with its tumbling arpeggios and a stream of consciousness that attempts to cram as many words into each verse as possible, it deliciously muses on the point of existence, only broken up by dainty chorus, it shares common ground with contemporaries The Moldy Peaches.
The toe-tapping lo-fi of Outta Town, from his most recent Rough Trade album Manhattan, inspires leaping and dancing in the front row. The wonky verses muse upon how his life turned into a mess when he thinks his girlfriend has left him, only to discover she’s just gone to visit her mother. With his guitar now fed through a fuzz pedal, Something Good rattles with a neverending search for happiness.
The Man With The Golden Arm is introduced as one of the first songs his brother Jack wrote, and together they rifle through this riotous tale of a duplicitous superhero to the delight of the audience. Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts deliver a reassuringly charming set, drawn with excellent songwriting which offers sketches of a life in the margins and it leaves us all grinning from ear to ear.
words BILL CUMMINGS photos EMMA LEWIS
