Orlando Weeks delivers a perfect laidback Tuesday night

Posted On September 25, 2024September 25, 2024

The world has changed since the days of The Maccabees. Or is it simply that I’ve got older? 15 years ago, there was a degree of hedonism synonymous with live music. Now, as I entered the Cluny, I was greeted by the sight of a punter with a journal propped on the corner of the stage, drawing the band like a court sketch artist of concerts. Modern gigs may well be mellower, more laidback and accommodating, but that still doesn’t make them any less energising.

Ahead of one of the busiest days of my working life, I left the first concert of Orlando Weeks’ current UK tour buoyed enough to know it would take a Horlicks to rock me off to sleep, and that’s without the band ever even breaking above safe volume levels or blasting out strobes. Their approach was far more springlike as opposed to the ‘hottest day of summer’ ethos of old concerts from bygone times. They looked to wrap their arms around you rather than grab you by the lapels.

Weeks’ humble tales of family life and finding affirmations in the free things were a gentle boon on an early autumn evening. Working his way through his solo records to date, with an ambient-ified take on the old classic ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ thrown in for good measure, he curated a stripped-back exhibition of an evolving life—from the birth of his son to domestic disagreements and dreams for the future.

This beguiled an audience who saw their own journey reflected in Weeks’, folks who previously might have moshed to ‘No Kind Words’, now swaying on wearier feet, in comfier shoes, to a complex sound that Weeks has helped to guide them towards enjoying, catching glimpses of their themselves in tales of milky breathed babies, revelations somewhere over North America, and the ageing thought of ‘they would(‘ve) like(d) it here’. There was a sense of bliss in the beatitude of Weeks’ shimmering music.

Thus, a sketch artist felt far more apt than the loud shutter of a camera. His soft pencil depiction more aligned to the hushed, reminiscent ambience of the gentle evening. Even the odd blemish in his work proving fitting, with Weeks not too proud to admit that an absolute pig’s ear was made of ‘Dig’, joking, “It’s the first night of the tour, so you’re getting the raw, unfiltered version of all this”, before completing his quip, “You wouldn’t believe how many hours went into making that sound like that“.

However, even that earnest blot oddly embellished the evening. Not that they’ll repeat it, but there was a charm to it—it was live art unfurling with raw expression. With a backdrop of Week’s own animations, that sense of creativity abounding ran throughout the evening, from the ever-impressive Chartreuse to the dynamic brilliance of Weeks three-piece band, and the Geordie sketcher scribbling away in the corner.

By and large the songs were stripped back with the odd bop in the form of a Hop Up jam doing enough to conjure dancing for a while. With Weeks distinctive croon orchestrating a sweet evening, you were given space to think about life and love, safe in sound, prompting yours truly to think of a quote from a favourite writer, Kurt Vonnegut, who said: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

If Orlando Weeks making you just about weep with unexpected cuts from The Gritterman doesn’t make from the perfect autumnal Tuesday, then what does?

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