I remember there being this huge buzz around Willie J Healey when he emerged in 2015. One of those artists whose name came up time and time again, but I’d never gotten around to listening to. Idiot.
A couple of years later, packed into a tent on a muddy weekend in July for Deer Shed Festival 2019, in the dependable company of the 6Music dads, I had a moment of enlightenment as the rain pelted down outside.Having spent the last few years making up for lost time, Willie J Healey’s tour was a non-negotiable as venues reopened their doors this Summer.
On 11th October, WJH played to a packed-out audience at the The Crescent Club in York, just one of the numerous sold-out dates on the tour. If the venue hasn’t popped up on your radar before, it’s very much like Leeds’ The Brudenell. A former Working Men’s Club, it offers the same cosiness and comfort of a your favourite knit-vest– couldn’t be a better fit for WJH, famous for his enviable knitwear collection.
He bounced and jangled, quite literally, through almost all of his second album, Twin Heavy. Every facial expression and gesture that the recorded album suggests, particularly on ‘Songs For Joanna’ and ‘Heavy Traffic’, were indeed brought to life on stage in a Bowie-esque fashion (or ‘Fashun’, should I say). The setlist also revisited earlier tracks including ‘My Room’, ‘Love Her’ and ‘Greys’; it was a joy to watch fans throwing arms around each other, passing knowing looks as they recognised the start of those older, well-loved favourites.
Willie maintained a playful rapport with the audience throughout. At times, quite bemusingly, the dynamic almost felt like that between a teacher and their class–the audience filled with every student you’d expect from class clowns, to the quiet, conscientious workers. Taking drunk hecklers in his stride–less lary lads than excitable puppies–Willie played the cool, young teacher role well. You know the type. The kind you can always have a laugh with and who’ll have the room hanging on their every word.
At the end of the evening, band mates Harry Deacon, Casper Miles and Chris Barker, departed the stage, leaving Willie to bid us all Goodnight, sending us on our way, with a delicate solo rendition of ‘Maybe We Should Hang’ as his parting gift. We filtered out into the cold, kept snug by the enduring warmth of that achingly beautiful love song–at once tender and crushing.
“I absolutely loved that,” my mum said as we walked back to the car, “You know when a song just hits you right in the heart.” And isn’t that just the best thing about live music? Whether you went into that gig familiar with Willie J Healey or not, you left besotted. And if you went in as a card-carrying devotee, you left with a huge sense of pride at his ability to captivate audiences old and new alike.
