Review: Yellow Days, Thekla

Yellow Days is the pseudonym of the prodigiously talented teenager George Van Den Broek. Live he performs with a band (the standard drums, bass and keyboards) whilst he takes care of guitar and vocals. On record he is a solo artist creating intelligent, emotionally literate indie-soul. Is that a genre? if not, it is now and Van Den Broek has the potential to be one of its biggest stars.

This was the second gig Yellow Days have played the Thekla, the first being the 6.30pm graveyard shift at 2017’s Dot to Dot Festival. The difference being this was a sold out, headline gig. Clearly during the intervening eighteen months he has acquired a large and devoted fan-base evidenced by the crowd greeting his every move on stage and every word with applause, whoops and cheers.  The majority also appeared to sing all of the words to all of the songs throughout the show, which ordinarily may have been somewhat annoying. However, this time it simply summed up the impact Van Den Broek’s lyrics have had on them.

Van Den Broek has a strong blue-eyed soul voice which belies his years and nods strongly in the direction of soul legend Ray Charles who he frequently cites as being a huge influence on him. Anyone naysayers who may have doubted that he could reproduce the emotive, yearning heights of his recorded output live would have been disappointed at this gig. He was note perfect throughout, and effortlessly so. The only jarring notes being the plethora of whoops and ‘hey’s which pointlessly punctuated the set.

Where some artists attempt to recreate an exact facsimile of their records when playing live Yellow Days avoided this temptation. The music wears it’s jazz influences so lightly as to be indiscernible on record, and has a fairly ‘indie’ sound and production, when performed live jazz permeates the set. Not least in Van Den Broek’s virtuoso guitar work, finger picking his way through the gig, he made complex tunes seem the most natural and easy music for him to be playing. At times his stunning musicality was breath-taking and fan or not, admittedly it did veer into the dodgy territory of jazz funk, it was impossible to deny that he has a sublime talent.

Van Den Broek may not have the greatest between song chat but with time and a few more gigs under his belt that is likely to come. His infectious enthusiasm for what he was playing and downright charming stage presence more than made up for him not endlessly chatting to the crowd, and it least he didn’t comment that he was playing on a boat. He had the confidence to let the music provide the connection between him and his crowd and should be lauded for that, as it can be a rare thing.

Lyrically Yellow Days cover subjects which seem at odds with the sunny, summery musical style. In addition to tales of love and loss, Van Den Broek writes songs which are not afraid to address mental health issues and how they affect him, and he does it well and maturely. Though it is tempting to dismiss him as what might happen if jazz and emo collided, there was more to his performance than that. He never seemed anything other than completely authentic, and believing in what he was singing which is perhaps why he connected so well with the audience.

He was brave enough to show vulnerability on stage and even braver to attempt a cover of the Etta James classic I’d Rather Go Blind which he just about pulled off. However, he seemed more comfortable playing his music and and the set was a solid gold crowd pleaser including Gap In The Clouds. Your Hand Holding Mine, That Easy and the ultra-jazzy How Can I Love You. The boy may love his jazz, he can also be funky but thankfully he isn’t the heir to the throne of the dismal Jamiroquai, he’s more likely to shove him to one side in a bloodless coup where raw talent wins out.