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REVIEW: Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard, featuring Esperi
Dave Mahoney, our ABoF intern extraordinaire, was on hand to help out at Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard's show on Tuesday. Never ones to pass up a golden opportunity, we made sure he was suitably kitted out with a camera in one hand, and notepad in the other, so he could write a cracking review of the evening's festivities:
Hot and sticky summer Tuesdays are not normally the best time to get Londoners out to a show, but the pull of Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard is obviously too much and by the time Esperi takes the stage, the Lexington is already looking pretty busy.
Main man Chris Lee-Marr immediately taunts the slowly melting crowd by telling them opening track "Lone Wolf" is about "snow". The heat is soon forgotten though as Esperi captivate everyone with their one of a kind show. At heart this is a solo singer songwriter project, although explorations into electronica, and even dark ambient, make this so much more. Never has the phrase multi-instrumentalist been more apt as Chris confidently handles, at my count, 17 different instruments, ranging from an everyday bass guitar to children's toys from the 1980s used for rhythmic effect. Tracks such as "Hearts Part 2" would be impossible to pull off without the aid of a repeater, so never has a piece of equipment felt like an essential part of the performance. Chris, the violinist and cellist who join him tonight, and their electronic bandmate create sounds and emotions line ups double their size would struggle to emulate.
When Jeffrey Lewis hits the stage, the Lexington is so packed that the "wonderful" air conditioning we were praising earlier is suddenly felt by no-one. His set generally tends to fall into two categories: firstly the upbeat New York punk. Alas the heat saps all energy out of the crowd, so no-one really gets dancing, which means the energy Jeffrey and the band try their best to create doesn't carry through to the second type of song, the relaxed, introspective anti-folk. That doesn't mean that this is a bad performance. In fact, it is just the opposite. Jeff, his brother Jack on bass and drummer Dave Beauchamp are hella fun, and to lesser artists the crowd would have been completely lost to the elements, but when strings are broken and Jeff keeps things going seamlessly during repair works with gangster raps about murdering mosquitoes, you know you're in the presence of someone very comfortable in front of a crowd, no matter how awkward his public persona would have you believe he is.
The setlist features new staples from latest album 'Em Are I such as "Objectified", but is made off the cuff, occasionally taking audience feedback into account to ensure that everyone hears what they want to hear, but Lewis really comes into his own when he talks comics. Completely unlike anyone else touring today, he hilariously narrates his comic illustrations, treating London to his hand drawn versions of the Pocohontas story and Jeff Buckley's Mojo Pin, and finally finds himself where he deserves, with the audience eating out of his hand.
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