LIVE REVIEW: Gwenifer Raymond, Nev Clay @ The Lubber Fiend, Newcastle (23.10.25)

Image by Lee Fisher

Nev Clay – a last-minute stunt double for The Horse Loom, who was poorly – was on great form and I suspect playing to quite a few people previously unaware of his myriad charms, which meant his delicious digressions and tangents went down a treat. There was an old but unrecorded song, Local Band Scene, that had more than a nod to Half Man Half Biscuit in its affectionate observations of the minutiae of such things, and we got the ever-lovely Hedgerow, a paean to the resilience of nature and the impermanence of capitalism. Perhaps because he was supporting Gwenifer Raymond, Clay’s guitar work was particularly excellent, especially on Ballad Of Brian Cox, a gorgeous song about stars around a black hole looking like tiaras (I might have got my cosmology slightly wrong on that).

Although I can’t play a note, when I watch most guitarists I can at least understand what they are doing – If not how they’re doing it. Kinda. But occasionally I’ll see a guitarist that defies logic. I’m not talking about some Eddie Van Halen / Joe Satriani fretwank bullshit. I’m talking about a guitarist who seems to be doing something beyond what two hands and six strings should be capable of. I’m talking about Gwenifer Raymond. There’s a century of playing styles in Raymond’s music – from the front stoop blues musicians to the sixties American primitives – John Fahey and Leo Kottke; from Indian ragas to folk artists like Bert Jansch; from the slide of Ry Cooder to the grunge she grew up with (Nirvana’s take on Leadbelly’s Where Did You Sleep Last Night seems to have been a game changer). Watching Raymond in full flight, hair over her face, hands a blur, is a remarkable experience, the physicality of it, the cascades of sound tumbling over themselves. Veering from the abrasive and staccato to the lyrical and soothing, between tentative and forceful, she uses percussive taps on the guitar’s body for emphasis and is one of the most expressive guitarists I’ve ever seen. She seems disarmingly awkward, apologises for not having much chat while peering out from under her fringe. But then she’ll start another tune (often from this year’s brilliant I Heard The Dog Star Bark) and just blow your tiny mind.