Much like Mac Demarco, who Juan Wauters supported when he last played in Brighton in December, Wauters is one of the chilled bros that make up the roaster on Captured Tracks. Breaking with the exceptionally high quality retro indie-pop the label has become known for putting out, Wauters offers super simple songs that would be more at home in the New York folk scene of the early 60s.

 

In fact support group Manuka Honey are probably more in line with what you would expect from the Captured Tracks sound than Juan himself. With 80s chorus drenched guitar lines and laid back they’re-almost-about-to-fall-over slow tempo jams. Their lead singer's delivery tries to follow this vibe but ends up just sounding flat and dispassionate, detracting somewhat from what is some decent song writing.

 

Juan finally takes to the stage after ten weirdly mesmerising minutes of watching an attempt to put up a flag with a drawing of his face on (inevitably this falls down multiple times over the course of the show). The first song finds Juan bobbing along somewhat uncomfortably, accompanied by cheap sounding keyboards played by one of his band. It has the feel of some kind of surreal karaoke performance with a knowing wink. Once he’s behind his guitar however the show instantly comes alive.

 

The show is lit only by a few sparsely distributed of light bulbs. Alternately pulsating at different speeds, they give the impression that these songs are being performed around the flicker of a campfire surrounded by a vast expanse of night. The songs work in much the same way they would do in this imagined environment: to lift spirits and provide a communal experience through their directness and simplicity. It helps that enough of the crowd knows the words to complete the image.

 

He remains playful throughout the show, hopping around the stage for the brief guitar interludes puncture these short but sweet songs. “Like a movie that is good / you require my attention” starts ‘I’m All Wrong’, a good example of how the sense of humour and naivety in his lyrics that get across his personality.

 

Wauters seems almost as reluctant for the show to end as the crowd is, taking a number of requests for songs to play acoustically for his encore. “This was a great show!” are the last words he attaches onto the end of ‘Water’, the final song of the night. You’re not wrong Juan.

Louis Ormesher