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[paulofromthebloc]

I had the pleasure of watching Jeffrey Lewis yesterday in St Stephen's Church in Ipswich. I have been to 20+ Jeffrey Lewis gigs and this medieval church is undoubtedly the prettiest venue I have seen him in.

It was a brilliant show.

After two solo acoustic songs, the band joined Jeffrey on stage for Roll Bus Roll. There was a loud singalong for every chorus. It made me realise that for the casual fan this is probably Jeffrey's best known song and the song they hope they see him play when going to see him.

I've been listening to Jeffrey's Peel Sessions recently (can easily be found on Youtube) and on Peel he performed a beautiful version of Heavy Heart, so I was delighted that this was one of the opening solo songs.

Music videos were Cuba part 7, Creeping Brain and the one about being a hippy (or not).

Some highlights of the set:

Scowling Crackhead Ian is always a favourite of mine and it was a great version yesterday.

A fantastic, bass led version of End Result was performed. Isabel Martin was on bass and really brought this song to life. I laughed when I google searched Isabel to find her surname and found a new Daily Mail article about the potential closure of a Wetherspoons in England! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12445459/EXCLUSIVE-Bizarre-Wetherspoons-motorway-SERVICE-station-saved-closure-delight-stranded-drivers-say-pub-beacon-broken-literally-drive-home.html

Chelsea Hotel Song was brilliant and raised a laugh with the crowd at the 'probably not' line. There was laughter also during Don't Be Upset at the pause into 'all you ever talk about is yourself and your comic books...'.

Exactly What Nobody Wanted. Amazing. My favourite Jeffrey Lewis song along with East River (not performed) and it mirrors how I feel about Jeffrey's music. I love being able to see him perform in tiny venues but I also wish more people were into his music, it means so much to me.

Sadly I can't make any more shows until Down at the Abbey Festival in Reading, and I think that might be a short set as it seems from the website that bands are starting one hour apart, perhaps giving each band around 50 minutes to perform. But 50 minutes of Jeffrey Lewis is absolutely worth travelling for.

[ELLIOT]

Thanks for sharing. Always good to see how different the set lists are. Agree about roll bus roll being more widely known - at the last Reading show some younger fans kept requesting it. Good news about the Down the Abbey festival show - they have an hour slot (the same has the main headliner BC Camplight). Would recommend getting there early to catch Sweet Baboo.

[paulofromthebloc]

I was down the front at the last Reading show where a young fan had a Roll Bus Roll sign. She didn't wave it very prominently though until the last song when Jeffrey noticed it, but then it was too late!
I will definitely go watch Sweet Baboo. He's been in and around the welsh music scene for years but I've never seen him live.

[jefflewis]

I'm curious to check out Sweet Baboo and also BC Camplight,
thanks for the Ipswich gig review, I do think that was perhaps the best gig of the tour so far, the venue and the sound and everything all added up to one of those evenings where most things seemed to go right!