Monday 08/05/06 Okkervil River, Darren Hayman @ Cargo, London

“They’ve flown me in especially as the support tonight”, Hayman jokes. “It’s a good thing I’m travelling light”, he quips, hoisting his ukelele skywards.  “And I know a little bit about audiences too”. Cue gurgles of gentle laughter and you know he’s not wrong. His smugness knowing much of the crowd are here to see him as well as the Texan headliners is apparent but not overly so; but still evident enough to see the ass kicked out of his scheduled half-hour slot.

 

The beauty of the acoustic solo is you actually understand what’s being sung and given the amusing quality of the lyrics, you’re glad he’s going it alone in what is a clever move, judging from all the variants on “I’m definitely seeing him again on the 29”. With more comedy than standup, Hayman gleefully strums each dilligent ditty, tickling the crowd with lines such as ‘the British Airways hostesses say “there goes that Phil Collins chap again”’. Relationships are the recurrent theme of the new material, particularly in the humourous number about a couple who think they’re both too good for each other, in which the girl rocks up to his for dinner in her favourite shoes; he: ‘I thought they were porn shoes’. Given the intimacy of the gig, we have a heckler: “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” It’s unclear whether his phone really rang or whether the guy is slating the taped ringtone-sounding backing tape and Hayman isn’t sure either, for just one second, but he springs back with “your heckle was just so funny I don’t have a funny response for it”. You beauty.

 

Okkervil River (the oft-misspelt name is a river outside St Petersburg) introduce their headlining slot with “this is the song that’s going to open our set” and they launch into the song that, er opens their set. Which is called ‘Missing Children’. Sonically appealing from the outset, the Texan sextet with an almost preppy frontman (who sounds like he’s from anywhere but Texas) are captivating the weirdo-punk, folkslashmod crowd that even the artiest are engaging in a bit of jostle, nudge, ‘yep here’s good’. Utilising the expanded line-up, the band create ambitious, multi-layered arrangements which carry the deeply-entrenched poignant lyrics from the college dorm Will Sheff penned them in to the crammed Old Street venue tonight. And it’s not really all that alt. country either. Sheff is undeniably mut’s nuts material, belting out each melancholic ode with astounding passion that it’s no wonder Virgin poached them from indie Jagjaguwar recently. Highlight is ‘Song About A Star’, with its extended spoken word breakdown which must surely be rehearsed but either he’s very good at making it sound entirely improv or he’s just an incredibly clever wit. Either way the grins on everyone’s faces show he’s getting it right and you’re actually feeling sorry for the girl who’s watching her filmstar boyfriend crack hollow anecdotes on Letterman at her expense. Brilliant.

 

How much can a band miss a setlist? Quite a lot, apparently! The guitarist from Silver Springs nabs it and is the reason the Okkers mess up the first song of what will be two encores (cos they’re really this good!) Patrick Pestorius (bass) is scratching his head for the scribblings and ends up picking up the wrong instrument. But because you’ve been amazing, we’ll forgive you.