Secret Meeting score: 80

by Philip Moss

By day, Buck Meek is the lead guitarist and sometime co-songwriter in Big Thief – undoubtably one of the best new indie bands around today. But over the last six months, he’s taken time out from the band to focus on his self-titled solo record. And tonight in Berlin, it was this material that he stripped back and brought to life.

Taking to the stage, he ruffled his cap and gazed out into the swarm of folk that had packed into the tiny basement of Kreuzberg’s Lido Club- ‘This is more people than come to my shows in the States!’

In his deep southern twang, Meek delivered a forty five minute set of small town stories and carefully crafted Americana. Tom The Tall, he explained, is ‘about a woman I was once in a relationship with. She was only five feet tall. The height discrepancy was always an issue,’ before launching into a vignette mostly sung in falsetto, that is reminiscent of Neil Young and the massively underrated Ohio natives, The Envy Corps, in equal parts. Album highlight, Cannonball, received a rapturous response from the crowd. While Fool Me is a hidden treasure that benefited from him swapping the pianos and embellished arrangement of its recorded version for guitar, thus allowing the imagery of his lyricism to really come to the fore- ‘I’m here to tell you, all the schemes and flips parlour tricks ain’t getting through / you can’t use the sunlight of your eyes to soften words of ice’.

At present, Meek is still managing to perform a balancing act, as he continues to do both solo shows and gigs with Big Thief. But as a strong songwriter and charismatic performer in his own right, once word spreads, he may be left with a decision to make.

Want to keep up to date with all our latest pieces? Follow us on social media…