{"id":13213,"date":"2026-05-16T11:10:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T10:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13213"},"modified":"2026-08-21T09:50:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:50:50","slug":"great-lake-swimmers-jente-pironet-yes-manchester-reviewed-by-peter-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13213","title":{"rendered":"Great Lake Swimmers & Jente Pironet @ YES Manchester, reviewed by Peter Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

An evening full of ‘quietly jaw-dropping’ moments.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Great Lake Swimmers & Jente Pironet | YES Manchester | 9th May 2026
Reviewed by Peter Wild<\/strong><\/p>\n

We find ourselves in YES, a building that was once an auction house, to check out Great Lake Swimmers, a Canadian trio touring their ninth album, Caught Light<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But first, in support, Jente Pironet, the Belgian frontman of shimmery guitar pop band Portland \u2013 solo Pironet is a different kettle of fish. Dressed in black work trousers and a black vest, his swooping vocals and chiming guitar chords sound like no one so much as Jeff Buckley. It takes a lot of chutzpah to give your all in front of a relatively small crowd in a dank basement but Pironet does just that. In addition to stripped back versions of songs from Portland\u2019s recent Champlain <\/em>album, he also takes on Dylan (asking us if we think his mop of curly hair makes him look like the Duluth minstrel), knocking out a pretty distinct version of \u2018Girl from the North Country\u2019 (from The Freewheelin\u2019<\/em>\u2026). All told, it\u2019s the kind of support that makes you wonder if the main act could possibly live up to it.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Great Lake Swimmers are more than up to the task. Usually given to touring as a five-piece, the current live iteration of the band sees Gary Craig (drums) and Colleen Brown (keyboards and bass, among other things) join frontman Tony Dekker and it\u2019s a gentle, organic affair \u2013 think Fakebook<\/em>-period Yo La Tengo, early Sufjan Stevens or Deathcab for Cutie, particularly the acoustic version of their Asphalt Meadows<\/em> album. They launch in with \u2018Still\u2019 from their 2009 album, Lost Channels<\/em>, and what was true then remains true now: \u201cI\u2019m still tuning myself to the great key \/ I\u2019m still mining for life in the dark wells \/ I\u2019m still searching for whispers in-between yells \/ I\u2019m still an arrow un-shot fixed in a bow\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Their sound is primarily acoustic (although on record it\u2019s fleshed out with steel pedal and strings) but never anything less than urgent. They follow \u2018Still\u2019 with three tracks from their new album, \u2018One More Dance Around the Sun\u2019, which could easily stand alongside anything by Fleet Foxes; \u2018Wrong Wrong Wrong\u2019, which opens \u201cThis is getting desperate \/ and we haven\u2019t seen the worst of it\u2026\u201d; and \u2018For You To Come Around\u2019, which wouldn\u2019t sound out of place on Neil Young\u2019s Harvest Moon<\/em>. There is a sense that Great Lake Swimmers operate ever so slightly out of time, a step away from fashion, and their songs could just as easily have been records in the 60s and early 70s as yesterday or earlier this week. Take the song \u2018Everything Is Moving So Fast\u2019, for instance, which they recorded as a sort of duet back in 2010, but which couldn\u2019t feel more contemporary.<\/p>\n

From 2010 we retreat further to \u2018Where in the World Are You\u2019 from 2007\u2019s album, Ongiara<\/em>, recorded in the Aeolian Hall in London, Ontario (Great Lake Swimmers having a bit of a thing for recording in odd places). It\u2019s a beaut. They play \u2018Caught Light\u2019, the title track of the new record, \u2018Somewhere Near Thunder Bay\u2019 (from Dekker’s 2013 solo release, Prayer of the Woods<\/em>) and \u2018Your Rocky Spine\u2019, the first bars of which prompt the stranger next to me to whisper in my ear, \u201cThis was the first Great Lake Swimmers song I ever heard. It\u2019s why I\u2019m here\u2019. They are a band who have this effect.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of other quietly jaw-dropping moments throughout the evening, from Dekker flying solo on \u2018Imaginary Bars\u2019 (from 2005\u2019s Bodies and Minds<\/em>) and \u2018Talking in Your Sleep\u2019 (another deep cut from his solo album), on which he sounds more like Nebraska<\/em>-period Springsteen than at any other point in the evening, to the rousing singalong that joins \u2018Pulling on a Line\u2019, on which Dekker sounds not dissimilar to a young Loudon Wainright, the crowd joining him for \u201cI\u2019m just pulling on a line, a line\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018I wouldn\u2019t recommend doing this for a living,\u2019 he says at various points in the evening. You sense that he and the band maybe sometimes ask themselves if it\u2019s worth it, making music as good as this for a lifetime of small rooms. (\u201cWhat if I went supernova,\u201d he sings on \u2018Distant Star\u2019, \u201cIf I really felt the heat\u201d). But there\u2019s a trajectory too, as the trio make their way through these quiet, majestic songs, and as they pick up on the obvious love in the room for what they are doing \u2013 maybe just maybe it\u2019s worth it after all. (That \u2018Distant Star\u2019 lyric ends, \u201cI would rather be in the distance \/ burning at my own speed.\u201d)<\/p>\n

They close the set with the very first song from the very first Great Lake Swimmers album, recorded when Dekker mostly performed on his own (albeit under what has become the band\u2019s name), a good couple of decades ago now. \u201cIt\u2019s a lullaby,\u201d he tells us. The audience is rapt, like children who have no plan on going to sleep. \u2018Moving Pictures, Silent Films\u2019 he sings and we are all glad to have shared in what feels like a secret, hidden away in the basement of YES. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Peter Wild<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An evening full of ‘quietly jaw-dropping’ moments. Great Lake Swimmers & Jente Pironet | YES Manchester | 9th May 2026Reviewed by Peter Wild We find ourselves in YES, a building that was once an auction house, to check out Great Lake Swimmers, a Canadian trio touring their ninth album, Caught Light. But first, in support, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nGreat Lake Swimmers & Jente Pironet @ YES Manchester, reviewed by Peter Wild - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=13213\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great Lake Swimmers & Jente Pironet @ YES Manchester, reviewed by Peter Wild - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An evening full of ‘quietly jaw-dropping’ moments. 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