Gig review: Kurt Vile & The Violators at Project House, Leeds

Strolling on stage at the sold Project House in a checked flannel shirt in a casual manner that suggests he’s just wandered in from the surrounding streets and somehow ended up on stage, Kurt Vile would likely do very well indeed were there ever a Neil Young circa 1976 lookalike competition.

Even if the Philadelphia-based guitarist-songwriter’s laidback onstage habitus gives every impression of an artist happy to simply chill out and go with the flow, it’s possible to detect a clear-headed sense of purpose and, most importantly, plenty of talent amidst the showmanship-averse, shambling everyman charm tonight.

Drawn from all corners of Vile’s back catalogue with an understandable focus on this year’s acclaimed 10th studio album Philadelphia’s Been Good to Me, the 100-minute set is characterised by songs that ditch conventional verse/chorus/bridge constructs in favour of tunes that match the dreamy logic of Vile’s stream-of-consciousness inner monologue lyrics, delivered in conversational tones that show some strained wear and tear on this final stop on the band’s European tour.

Vile’s songs don’t so much build towards cathartic choruses as unhurriedly wake, stretch and stumble into being, often ending precisely where they started. It’s such an uncompromisingly eccentric house style that its spontaneous feel must have required some serious woodshedding to perfect. A warm-heartedly nostalgic paean to Philadelphia’s gritty DIY music scene, Chance to Bleed for example consists of little beyond the song’s hooky refrain, yelped enthusiastically ad infinitum: in theory, a recipe for deadly tedium, but a hypnotically joyous gem when filtered through Vile’s carefree alchemy.

At the core of the set’s success is Vile’s richly expressive prowess as a lead guitarist. Even when the songs occasionally land on the wrong side of the dividing line between informally relaxed and ploddingly meandering, Vile – who appears to have taken his entire guitar collection on tour, as there are at least 10 different instruments in use during tonight’s 15-song set – can always be counted on to enliven the proceedings with virtuosity that favours feel and tone over boastful showing-off, and ranges from psych-rock noise and countrified lyricism to agile fingerpicking (an exquisite solo acoustic take on Runner Ups).

Endearingly, Vile keeps glancing at the crowd from underneath his long flowing locks during soloing like a kid who has just executed a cool skateboarding trick.

Next to this, the decidedly basic, no-frills bar band backing of the four-piece Violators can feel one-dimensional. There are moments when the band’s collective efforts positively soar (notably the crunchily intensifying duelling guitars of 99 BPM) but elsewhere some selections remain earthbound due to lack of variation and nuance in the arrangements.

Even so, as the evening culminates with the light-touch, country-tinged directness of Every Time I Look at You (which toys with plunging into Neil Young deep cut Already One), it’s hard not to conclude that Vile’s careful cultivating of a seemingly carefree approach has resulted in something quite special.