Big Thief are the kind of band who seem to have been around forever, producing songs that already possess the sound and feel of timeless classics. In reality, their debut album Masterpiece is only ten years old. Its title is a bold claim of their artistic talent but is substantiated by the music. The sophomore album Capacity landed almost a year later to the date, and the band followed up with two records in the space of five months in 2019. Since then, Big Thief have reverted to a more traditional release schedule with 2022’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, and now 2025’s Double Infinity. However, it seems as if a return to quick-fire releases may be on the cards, as the band used their first night at Aviva Studios to celebrate their latest album while simultaneously hinting at new material.
As the clock struck nine, the lights at Aviva Studios went down, revealing an empty stage until support act Ata Kak entered to introduce “the moment you’ve been waiting for”. The unreleased track ‘Forgive the Dream’ opened Big Thief’s set with a sense of optimism as it came to the resolution that “I can live in this world, and forgive this world”. It is mantras such as this which help to illuminate Adrianne Lenker’s striking vocals across Big Thief’s discography: even lyrics that seem hopeful, or songs that sound upbeat, are inflected by the expressive intimacy of her cracked falsetto.
There are very few singers whose voices are so distinct that they are instantly recognisable from the first word. Joni Mitchell, Amy Winehouse and Florence Welch all come to mind, but so does Adrianne Lenker. Her voice has the power to comfort one second and cause agony in the next, and this was no more evident than in ‘Carry’, another unreleased track which sees Lenker plead “carry all my memories away, let me be new again”. The song exhibits her signature combination of breathy whispering with sudden vibrato, enunciating the emotive intimacy of its lyrics and heightening its vulnerability.
“So good to see you, we’ve missed you”, Lenker stated, seeming to address 5000 of her nearest and dearest before ‘Shoulders’ began to play as the first released track of the night. Lenker and Buck Meek shared guitar duties to produce a trembling, unpolished distortion, perfectly complementing vocals that almost reached a screech during graphically allusive lines such as “the blood of the man who killed my mother, it’s in me, in my veins”.
Continuing with another Two Hands highlight, ‘Not’ saw Meek deliver backing vocals as the song’s instrumentation built, overwhelming the audience with its reflection on the limitations of language. The song is six minutes of pure, unfiltered emotion, and its sentiment was continued into ‘Words’, which similarly meditates that “Words are tired and tense, words do not make sense”. It is truly striking that even a talented wordsmith of Lenker’s ilk, renowned for her ability to express herself through confessional lyricism, encounters experiences that transcend description. As band members switched guitars, someone in the audience shouted “Manchester!”, and another shouted “Liverpool!” leading Lenker to respond “all the places! Earth!”. Her exclamation might have been light-hearted and flippant, but amidst a set characterised by vulnerable intimacy, it felt profound.
It’s easy to see why ‘Simulation Swarm’ is a favourite among fans of Big Thief. It is a perfect statement of intense feeling and experience in which Lenker reflects upon her early childhood in a Midwestern separatist community, the break-up that inspired her solo album songs, her brother Andrew who she has never met, and a four-day hospitalisation in 2020 as a result of seven years of extensive touring. Lyrics such as “you believe, I believe too, that you are the river of light, who I love, who I cling to, in the belly of the empty night” are crooned to the backdrop of James Krivchenia’s soft percussion, taking on quadruple meanings and delivering the song its genius. As ‘Simulation Swarm’ reached its end, Meek applauded Lenker in unison with the audience’s reverence.
Another unreleased track, ‘Beautiful World’, followed, posing the question “why must everything be conquered, gutted?”. In a world marked by wars and brutality, Big Thief offer solace that could be felt by every person in the room; even Lenker herself, who concluded the song by saying “y’all are beautiful, it’s a gift to be here” and inviting the crowd to “stretch and breathe for a second”. ‘Double Infinity’, the title track of Big Thief’s latest album, brought the beginning of a run of recently released material, completed by ‘All Night All Day’ and ‘Los Angeles’.
‘Certainty’ is one of Big Thief’s most folk-adjacent songs, transforming the mundane into something surreal and becoming enchanting as a result. The band have been known to alter their setlist frequently, never playing the same run of songs two nights in a row, so the appearance of ‘Certainty’ came as a pleasant surprise. The same can be said about ‘Real House’, which opens Lenker’s 2024 solo album Bright Future with a contemplation of childhood. Its sixth verse discusses “so many dreams of flying, rising high above the crowd, and they’d go “oh, man, look at her go””, painting a scene of aspiration and innocent dreaming.
‘Real House’ transitioned seamlessly into an unreleased track called ‘Christmas Day’, a similarly devastating track in spite of its deceptively cheery title. Its lyrics are possibly the most vulnerable Lenker has ever written, revealing painful memories of childhood trauma, family dysfunction and repeated abuse. After the muted ambition of ‘Real House’, its effect was all the more heart-rending, leaving tears on the cheeks of many in attendance. A moment of humour provided some respite, as Lenker stopped the unreleased track ‘Mr Man’ midway through, asking “I like that song, but can we skip to the next one?”.
As one of the only hits to appear on the setlist, standalone single ‘Vampire Empire’ sustained the suddenly light-hearted atmosphere musically with its jangling guitar riff, while lyrics centred around addiction, toxic relationships and cyclical behaviour cemented Big Thief’s collective ability to conceal vulnerability beneath twee instrumentals. “It’s time to shake your silly out”, Lenker stated as ‘Spud Infinity’ closed the band’s set by bringing “one peculiar organism… all together”.
By the time the band had left the stage, the clock was reaching eleven, and the venue’s curfew was imminent. This didn’t prevent their return, however, for a single-song encore of ‘Incomprehensible’, the drifting and dreamy opening track of Double Infinity. ‘Incomprehensible’ sees Lenker contemplating aging with a fear that transforms into resignation and acceptance before reframing it as something beautiful, finding liberation in the unfathomable nature of eternity. It served as the perfect close to a near-perfect performance, leaving the audience with one final concept to contemplate.
Aviva Studios is renowned for its production scale, but Big Thief kept it stripped back and barely used the stage space, adding to the intimate feel initiated by their confessional music. Listening to the band on record, you can hear the texture of every sound, making it impressively surprising that they can recreate them in a live setting with the simplicity of traditional instruments. Big Thief’s live show testified to their brilliance, and proved their importance as the most ‘Incomprehensible’, timeless act of today.
