Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter at The Lexington

Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter

Henry Grace

The Lexington, 27 April 2026

It's been almost 20 years since I last saw Jesse Sykes live, so I was especially excited to see her play the wonderful Lexington. The previous times I've seen her play it was with a full band but this time it was a little different and just as special as she played as a duo with her bandmate, guitarist extraordinaire Phil Wandscher, and it was truly a spell-binding, atmospheric night. How lovely to have her back!

Although the show wasn't sold out, it was quite heartening to see there was a queue to get in, including a few people wearing old Jesse Sykes t-shirts. I say this only because one of the shows I saw her and her band play, at Bush Hall in 2007, was a little under-attended, which completely shocked me at the time as Sykes had just released her masterpiece Like, Love, Lust And The Open Halls Of The Soul. I assume it was due to a lack of advertising because this time The Lexington was definitely packed out. It is one of the benefits of social media these days: it's much easier to see when your favourites are playing. There's so many gigs I've missed simply because I didn't know about them.

Supporting Jesse Sykes tonight was a young man called Henry Grace who quietly set up on stage and took a seat on an old beer barrel covered in dog stickers, it was very low-key and rootsy. With short curly hair and a scruffy beard, he looks quite young but tells us he moved to America aged 21 and spent some time there, with many of his songs inspired by his experiences living in the States. In fact, there are a couple of song titles that reflect this: a yearning but warm folk tune called California Rain and a more rootsy, upbeat tune called Tennessee Dust.

Despite his baby-faced looks, Grace has a much more world-weary deep voice that is well-suited to the Americana music he is making, which seems to be full of songs about travelling and trying to find his place in the world. I have to also say that Grace has clearly been influenced and studied the amazing Ray LaMontagne, as he definitely has a similar sound, not just with his soulful, raw and weathered delivery, but the songs themselves certainly have a kindred spirit.

Inbetween songs he seems very amiable, telling stories about living in the US, working with photographer Henry Diltz (and regretting not asking him about Crosby, Stills & Nash) and moving back to the UK. His final song is a tribute to living in London, called This Is The Place, which seems a nice way to end. He went down really well with the crowd tonight and he seemed quite moved by the reponse. Apparently he was just released his second album and was selling it at the merch desk after the show. I didn't have enough money on me to buy it but I told him how much I enjoyed his set. I'm sure he would have been happier if I had bought his record though!

One of my favourite things when I go to a gig is when the artist turns up early on the stage and Sykes and Wandscher did just that, immediately winning my heart. Other than wearing tinted glassed, she looked exactly the same as when I first saw her live back in 2007: petite and beautiful, with her striking long black hair she looks like something from another era completely. Wandscher was endearingly disheveled, with his messy head of hair and black leather jacket, looking like a complete rock star. 

With just a smile and a small hello to the crowd, the pair, both seated with their guitars in their laps, began playing Eisenhower Moon, from the aforementioned Like, Love, Lust And The Open Halls Of The Soul, nicely coming full circle for me, as that was the record I first heard her and fell in love with her music. This was such a perfect way to open the show, as the song is so hushed and gentle-sounding, with the harmonica played by Wandscher, providing depth and flavour. It sounded wonderful.

The fact that Sykes was singing at all was pretty impressive as she had recently lost her voice. The way she sings is quite raspy and often whispery anyway, so the fact that a couple of shows they had to play as instrumental only gigs, shows just how bad it must have been for her, and even tonight she sometimes has to turn from the microphone to cough. You would never know she had a problem with her throat those as she sounds just how I remembered her. She tells us they did have to adjust the setlist at other shows though to accommodate her sore throat, as some songs she simply couldn't sing at all, but tonight, they actually play a few tunes they hadn't been able to attempt before and I'm glad to say, they all sounded fantastic.

Sykes' music with the Hereafter often builds into long instrumental pieces with lots of guitar solos, so I did wonder how this would translate into a more acoustic setting but it actually worked really well. While Sykes herself played an acoustic guitar throughout, Wandscher had his trusty DeArmond electric guitar, adding all the spooky flourishes and rising guitar solos, with Sykes often turning in her chair towards Wandscher as they jammed together. It was actually really effective and worked with their dreamy, gothic sound.

One of the highlights for me was hearing the Oh, My Girl song Winter Hunter, which sounded so moving in such an intimate setting. It's weird how a song can embody its title so much, but it completely evoked the feeling of winter and dark days. 

So many of Sykes' songs seem to deal with themes of death and loss and she spoke about how her mother is currently in a hospice and last year had to leave another tour to rush by her side, thinking her demise was imminent. Instead after two weeks she awoke and asked, as if nothing had happened, "How's the record going?" She said she was very close to her mother and that while others didn't understand the melancholy nature of her music, her mother always "got it" and noted it was going to be very hard went she finally goes. It was such a raw and honest moment from Sykes, and so moving, completely in keeping with her music.

The title track of the new record, Forever, I've Been Being Born, was also about birth and death and how they are interlinked. She spoke about how long it took her and the band to get the atmosphere right on the studio version and the way it soars at the end, beautifully helped along by the vocals of Marrisa Nadler, telling us to go listen to the recorded version as well, but it was still startlingly beautiful with just the duo and in particular Wandscher really helped that rousing sound at the end with his guitar echoing throughout the venue. He may have been sitting but he certainly didn't remain stationary as he played, letting the emotion of the solo drive his notes. 

They tried out a few tracks from the new album that she said that they hadn't been able to play before due to her vocal problems and all sounded great including the dreamy Feather Treasure which almost sounded like an Native American prayer or chant and the dark, emotional folk of A New Medium, which Sykes said was her favourite on the new record but she hadn't been able to sing it before tonight. Again this effectively built to a roaring, feedback-driven guitar solo. 

Sykes laughed whenever she introduced a track because she said Wandscher didn't like her to talk too much between songs, but she said she wanted to give background to one in particular, Dewayne, one of the few tracks she has written with an actual name as its title. She told us how in the 80s she had worked for the photographer Mary Ellen Mark and it hadn't been a pleasant experience. But it had led her to a documentary she had worked on called Streetwise, which was based on a Life Magazine article featuring photos taken by Mark and directed by her husband Martin Bell. 

The documentary followed the lives of homeless teens in Seattle (where Sykes is from), in particular one boy called Dewayne Pomeroy, who hung himself the day before his 17th birthday. The song was a tribute to his story and she said she felt his spirit while writing the song, as it he was giving it his seal of approval. She told us what various phrases, places and slang words meant in the song for we would understand the references more. The song has a more Americana feel and, given the subject matter, is strangely more uplifting but maybe acts as a gritty love letter to that period of Sykes' life and a Seattle that perhaps doesn't exist anymore.