The Waeve manages to cut through the darker parts of their discography, those moments which align with art rock’s haunting experiences, with a lighter stage presence. It is a much-needed balance that begins to defang some of their songs. A new context is added as they take to The Leadmill stage, an intimate occasion which feels similar to their appearance at The Brudenell Club in Leeds on their first tour. There is still the fascinating blur of two seasoned musicians taking to the stage with a new project, playing and maintaining freedom for instrumental experimentation. “Fuck it, it’s jazz,” Rose Elinor Dougall tells Graham Coxon, who spends much of the set in a sweet back and forth with drummer Thomas White. Stand at the back of the room and you can feel that percussion rattle your brain. A welcome experience, and what a time it is on The Waeve’s City Lights tour.
A monumental second album to tour, too, with the brash and loud style of City Lights creating some necessary contrast to the dark-rock tones of their self-titled debut. A neat backlog of material now, and it works very well together. City Lights has Coxon slip into the background as the instrumental powerhouse he is, riffing well with the rest of the band on that beautiful, blacked-out GC-01 guitar. A tremendous bit of machinery and put to work well as it backs the Dougall-led set, with most vocal pieces falling into her remit. A staggering job and delivered brilliantly the whole way through. Part of the charm The Waeve has is the lucidity of the works, and the ease at which avenues of interest can be explored. Those moments which drift slightly from the studio work and representation of The Waeve as a gloomy band are well-worked. Can I Call You still has that thrill to it, that feeling of live sensation.
That serious imagery is loosened a little with songs like Undine, Sleepwalking and Song for Eliza May. The conviction of the song, the sense of seriousness and hope for a better world and brighter future, is not lost. What is gained though is a sense of community, a tone of togetherness which comes from the flutters of improvisation. You’re All I Want to Know may be a grim omission but it does not affect what is a wonderfully intimate set. We cannot have it all. Eternal, the title track of their recent EP release, makes up for the lack of self-titled album deep cuts. A tight set on the whole is what you get, but there is room for playfulness which has followed Dougall and Coxon in their careers before The Waeve. A new image and sound but an old attitude to live production.
Crucial to any live show is cementing the contemporary sound. City Lights was a step in another art-rock direction, a stripped-down sound compared to The Waeve. Building it back up on stage, re-assessing songs like Sunrise and Drowning, adds that ever-necessary layer to live performance. Dark tones, and pangs of borderline gothic hopelessness in the lyrics, balanced by a wonderful stage presence and a joking sense that everyone would be sacked by the end of the night. White pulling a Song 2 drumbeat in the break creates what can only be described as a sold-out in-joke, an experience as delightful for those on the stage as it is for those in attendance. Having that back-and-forth with a crowd at a legendary venue at The Leadmill is not a guarantee, but the tone is set well with a double bill of albums which, despite being lightened up, have not lost their menace or meaning.
