Jeffrey Lewis has been coming to the Brudenell since 2002. He clearly loves the place. I mean, who doesn’t? But with mock indignation, he takes exception to being in the venue’s second concert room tonight. “The pseudo Brudenell,” he calls it, with his New York tongue firmly in his cheek. The reason for this is because the Mekons, one of the longest-running British punk bands and a veritable Leeds institution, are right next door in the main room. So, what does Jeffrey Lewis do? Well, he just goes and belts out a cracking rendition of the Mekons’ first single, ‘Where Were You?’ That’s what he does.
Jeffrey Lewis is like that. He is wildly spontaneous, inventive, playful, and hugely generous of spirit. And he also just goes his own sweet way and does exactly what he likes, when he likes. The title of his latest LP suggests as much. It is called The EVEN MORE Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis and the cover sees him and his female companion walking down Jones Street in his home city, recreating the artwork to Bob Dylan’s similarly entitled second album from 1963. Unlike the Zim and Suze Rotolo, though, they are minus any clothing, albeit with their modesty carefully concealed.
It is three songs in before Lewis gets to anything from that record. While he appears here as part of Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, he initially takes to the stage alone and rattles off a suitably powerful ‘Thing That People Give Me’ from his 2023 Tapes record. And then one by one the Voltage join him. First, it is Mallory Feuer on violin keys and bass guitarist Valerie Marchesi who sidle up alongside Lewis for another rattling stream-of-consciousness special, ‘Dregs’, before drummer Brent Cole completes the quartet for the first track to appear from the new album. It goes by the name of ‘Relaxation’ and as the band kick up a sonic storm and Lewis squeezes out sparks from his guitar, it is anything but.
Then comes the first (of three) interludes whereby Lewis marries his songwriting to one of his many other talents, that of comic book illustration. This sci-fi extravaganza is called ‘The Space Alien’s Bright Idea’ and has Lewis’s drawings projected onto a hastily erected bedsheet at the back of the stage while he narrates the magical story. It is all so gloriously do-it-yourself, surrealistic fun.
From that point until he reaches a second and final encore of ‘What I Love Most in England (Is the Food!) about an hour or so later, Lewis zig-zags back and forth across his recording career in a typically, er, freewheeling fashion. He goes as far back as 1998 for a delightful return to ‘The East River‘; takes us through a brilliantly extended combination of ‘Exactly What Nobody Wanted’, which blurs seamlessly into ‘Depression! Despair!’ – both from Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage’s 2019 album Bad Wiring – and detours to 2005’s City and Eastern Songs for ‘Moving’ and a vastly entertaining ‘Scowling Crackhead Ian’ from the Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts’ Manhattan album.
There are also two more “low-budget film presentations.” The first relates to one of Jeffrey Lewis’s interpretations of the great works of American literature, where the American folk singer Bob Neuwirth somehow conjoins with his fellow countrymen, the artist Robert Crumb. I feel pretty sure F. Scott Fitzgerald didn’t imagine The Great Gatsby looking quite like this. And the second is about “the greatest film of all time.” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is Evil Dead 2.
Jeffrey Lewis certainly has plenty of material to draw upon, and such is the man’s spontaneity and desire to never stand still, you would think that no two set-lists of his are ever the same. And how the hell he remembers all the words to all these songs is quite beyond me? His first encore is ‘Just Fun’ from the new album, and this is exactly what tonight is. Pure and absolute entertainment.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos of Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage at Brudenell Social Club
