Jeffrey Lewis

It's hard to think of many people in the world of alternative music with as ubiquitous a presence as Daniel Johnston. On his journey to the semi-mythic status he now enjoys, via his first job in Austen, at McDonald’s, various mental institutions and swathes of critical and artistic veneration for both his heartbreakingly lo-fi music and his tortured felt-tip drawings, Johnston has crossed paths with some of the pillars of indie rock: Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, Okkervil River, Half Japanese, to name a few. When he finally emerges tonight it's hard to connect the figure on stage with the legend; in baggy sweat pants, a loose t-shirt that barely covers a bulging stomach, he looks like what, realistically, he is: an aging man who has spent large periods of time struggling with serious mental illness. Yet at the same time he is 'Daniel Johnston', with everything that entails; the man who once chased an old woman out of a second story window, who wanted The Beatles to reform as his backing band, and whose music had a similar effect for a generation of ‘90s artist as Dylan had 30 years earlier - if this guy can do it... hell, anyone can!

The presence of Jeff Lewis and Adem on the bill is testament enough to the wide draw Daniel still has, over 20 years after he first emerged in Texas. You can tell that the two come from very different places musically, Jeff the sketchy comic book artist with a guitar little more than a composite of a thousand stickers, Adem the multi-instrumentalist and seeming consummate professional. Of the two it's easier to see Johnston's influence in Lewis's music, witty and self-deprecating as it is. It's always great to see him perform, to see the ripple of pleasure that passes through the crowd as 'Will Oldham Williamsburg Horror' reaches its convoluted climax. Adem's music may be more technically proficient than Jeff's, bursting with earnest amour, yet, next to the two American eccentrics tonight his songs fall slightly flat; his Beach Boys cover reveals a playfulness and spontaneity more in keeping with the occasion (this is the Comedy Store, after all).

Eventually the man himself emerges. There's almost a voyeuristic tension in the audience; stories abound about how he buckled at his first set at ATP; as he struggles to plug in his guitar, standing alone with the helpless dependency of a lost child, you can sense that the crowd are unsure how to react, whether to maintain a studious silence or offer encouragement that can't help but sound mildly patronising ("you can do it, Dan!"). Part of me doesn't want to think that a small percentage of the people here tonight are here to see the Daniel Johnston circus - will he crumble? Will he freak out? In the end, despite a noticeable shake in his left hand, he's remarkable composed. His set is split into three parts, beginning with a solo performance divided between guitar and organ. He's particularly uncomfortable on guitar; as he intensely and nervously brings his hand, clenched in a tight fist, down over the strings I wonder how much the man onstage can even relate to songs he wrote decades ago now, when the extent of his mental illness was yet to manifest itself in its most severe form, the kind which left him immobilised in the early ‘90s.

Yet when he gets behind the piano-organ he noticeably eases, the struggling guitar playing transformed into playful jangling. Extraordinarily his voice has only slightly dropped, that boyish (literally, little-boyish), slurring intonation still noticeable. When he jokes with the crowd, telling us about a dream he had about being sentenced to death for trying to commit suicide ("I was saying, 'No! No!'"), the layers of nervous intensity eek away to reveal a glimpse of the artist with a painfully innocent vision of love and life. Adem and Jeff then join him onstage to go through some of the pillars of the Johnston back catalogue. Adem's accomplished musicianship allied with Daniel's still crackling warble bring the songs to life; suddenly you're not faced with a man struggling to play the most simple chord on a guitar, but a gifted and unique songwriter, capable of lyrical insights of extraordinary beauty. No song better demonstrates this than 'Go': with Adem on guitar the song seems set free, hopeful and alive.

Maybe Daniel Johnston means so much to people in the world of 'alternative' music, fans, critics and musicians alike, because, in a way, he embodies so fully the struggle to be liked, loved and understood that such a large chunk of 'us' can relate to, and occasionally struggle with ourselves. Daniel Johnston is just the extreme of that struggle, where an innocent view of art blurred lines with an unstable, clinical inability to draw the line between real life and that art. During 'Go' for a moment I can see the years peel back - in front of me is the young twenty-something you see onstage in Austen in The Devil & Daniel Johnston, so full of boundless, electrified sincerity, desperate for fame and mad about music. By the time Former Bullies join him onstage for a rollicking rock set, he seems to be really enjoying himself; when he comes out for a sing-along version of 'Devil Town', I'm just delighted to be singing "I found I was a vampire with Daniel Johnston. The Daniel Johnston.