At the Villagers gig at Sound Control Manchester I find myself trying to place the rather tall gentleman to my left. Ah yes its Jeremy Pritchard from Everything Everything. Keen not to continue staring at ‘the man from a band’ I move to the other side of the venue only to spot Elbow’s Guy Garvey! All gratuitous name dropping aside, what’s important here is that a Villagers gig is an exciting place to be right now. Conor Obrien’s superbly crafted songs are a shot in the arm for a stale singer songwriter scene.
When Bob Dylan toured in 1966 with the Hawks, he played two sets, one was a solo acoustic performance of his more traditional, folk based material and the second was an electrifying full band set in which he morphed his compositions into something sonically groundbreaking. He elongated vowels, shouted lyrics through cupped hands and challenged the very notion of what popular music could be.
Tonight on Mr. Dylan’s 70th birthday Villagers set has echoes of that famous tour. There are moments of solo brilliance - Conor Obrien’s acoustic guitar and voice holding the audiences attention with great ease. ‘Cecilia & Her Selfhood’ and ‘That Day’ are standouts and showcase a gifted songwriter at the peak of his powers. However there is a creative tension on stage tonight. Villagers full line up doesn’t simply offer a sympathetic backing track to Obrien’s songs. The warped guitar lines and complex drum patterns take the performance somewhere else, and Obrien is ok with this. Much like Dylan he recognises the need to be on the edge of that creative spark. To balance oneself on the verge of the unknown is to be open to moments of true inspiration.
The Ivor Novello winning ‘Becoming A Jackal’ is given an upbeat makeover and unites the room in song. It receives the biggest ovation of the evening. However the highlight of the night is undoubtedly ‘On A Sunlit Stage’ - lyrics like
Now I know you've come from a darkened place/But I'll never know how it feels to face/Your own epitaph, on a summers day/As the sun shines with a ceaseless grace. are delivered with such elegiac beauty it’s hard not to be moved.
Find out more about Villagers on tour this summer here. [link]
