Levi Weaver’s beaming and energetic when he arrives at The Black Lion with his missus, Heather. Both are bright-eyed souls with a distinct east US accent that fills the room immediately.

The two are living the (authentic) musician’s dream – a #vanlife travelling from place to place, making gigs work for them and fund their journey to the next city. Such nomadic adventures are what brought him fom Nashville, Tennessee (a great, great place for music which hosts indie/country favourites Lampchop; it’s where Jack White always seems to find himself) …all the way to a Salford pub in Greater Manchester thanks to a superfan.

Levi Weaver at The Black Lion – Presented by James Wilkes

Then proceeded a three-day dash to get Levi a crowd via social media, word-of-mouth at the bar and, well, talking about it as often as possible prior to the gig. It worked.*

Support came from Fugitive Empire – a local indie folk rock act who’s played Night & Day, Glastonbury and coninues to write and record diligently – currently clocking up work on his sixth home-studio album. [See last year’s interiew here.]

But then like a master magician, the row of pedals and skillful foot emerged fantastically for incredible loop-concept cover of Radiohead’s Idiotheque – a particularly interesting turn which follows the trend set by Efterklang’s Peter Broderick and film soundtrack artist, Yann Tiersen, where every layer upon layer of noise – including violin bow that skilfully whisks itself over the guitar – adds to create whati s effectively the coolest one-man-band you’ve ever seen.

The allure of Levi seems to be within his fearlessness – be that in his music, tackling everything from ghost towns to depression, to tales of romances broken – to the way he is more than happy to travel with family, rock up to a pub, set up like a pro, perform, and crash the night with fans.