Chad VanGaalen’s fans are young. A vast proportion of the crowd at the Borderline look like they were given Topshop vouchers for their 21st birthdays, all of which were within the last month or so.

Proceedings get off to a noisy start with Women, a band that seem determined to lead the crowd down one alleyway before ducking through a fire door and re-emerging in a different city. Still, their meandering noise is not without its charms.

VanGaalen ambles onstage with two members of Women, asks the crowd to be a little quiet so he can try to tune a banjo to an accordion and, when he can’t, disappears backstage again. For the rest of the evening, he appears to be making it all up as he goes, flipping through a notebook of drawings to find which song he’s supposed to play next, trying to tune entirely by ear and rambling about the weather and hippies. He’s never less that utterly charming. And then when he plays, everything suddenly leaps into place and the most amazing sound comes out.

VanGaalen veers between gently melodic indie and crunching Crazy Horse riffs and if a highlight has to be picked then the stomping ‘Bare Feet On Wet Grip Tape’ would clinch it. There have been all sorts of essential gigs in stunning venues this year but nothing, absolutely nothing, can or will touch this.

Mark Grassick
Photo: Rachel Lipsitz