mark william lewis at The Mash House

By Evelyn Donnelly

After a solitary bus ride filled with intermittent dozing, the stormy countryside, and the Mark William Lewis discography, I arrived in Edinburgh for his concert at The Mash House. I ate a quick bite and headed to the venue, a small bar down an alleyway in Cowgate. I presented my ticket to the man at the door a few minutes after 7PM, when the doors opened, and found a large chunk of time ahead of me before the opener, Alba Akvama, came on at 8PM. With no one to speak to and an almost empty bar awaiting me, I grabbed a pint of Guinness, sat on a leather loveseat and with a perfect view of the door, and watched as the patrons trickled in.

Lewis began releasing his distinctive melancholic tunes in 2022, with the EP Pleasure is Everything. So it was no surprise to me that most of the crowd were young people, around my age. A lot of them were slightly alternative types, wearing all black or baggy clothing, lots of leather jackets and black boots or some more streetwear styles. There were couples I could notice, who held each other through the hypnotic atmosphere created by Lewis on stage. I got another beer and decided to walk around, entering the main performance room where people lingered, waiting for the opener. I bought a ‘Pleasure is Everything’ merch t-shirt, stuffed it in my coat pocket, and joined the growing crowd. Alba Akvama and her saxophonist entered the stage, and began their set. Her sound felt quite similar to Lewis', with some of their songs marked by the whine of the saxophone and Alba’s piano-playing, and others by the deep strum of the electric guitar. Over all their songs, Alba’s passionate voice rang clearly and strikingly. They were the perfect appetizer for Mark William Lewis.

They finished half an hour before Lewis was to take the stage, so people flitted around, and I joined the queue at the bar. I started talking to a girl, who guessed from my accent that I wasn’t from around here. I confirmed her assumption, and she told me she goes to the University of Minnesota, and was studying abroad in London. She said that mark was her favorite artist of all time, continually referring to him by his first name as if they were close. This speaks to the effect of Lewis' music; when an artist creates such deeply emotional and impactful songs, their listeners can’t help but feel personally connected to them. Her connection to him was so deep that she made the trek from London all the way to Edinburgh to see him at such a small venue, which was admirable. 

At 9PM Lewis began his set, with ‘Socialising’ off of his most recent eponymous album. Two guys in front of me noticed I had difficulty seeing from my position, and kindly asked if I would like to stand in front of them, giving me a nearly perfect view of the stage. I looked at the crowd around me, and noticed everyone beginning to feel wrapped up in the performance. Lewis was front and center, holding an acoustic guitar with his signature harmonica propped up close to his mouth. He was flanked by his bassist and guitarist, who both had shoulder length straight brown hair. I thought it was funny that they had identical hair cuts while Lewis and the drummer were both bald. It was a peculiar kind of symmetry they created onstage. 

The setlist comprised mostly of songs from his most recent album, mixed in with more well-known tracks like ‘Cold Paris Vogue’ and ‘Pleasure is Everything’. The most interesting thing I found about his performance was how grungier they performed songs which were much more mellow in recordings. At certain points, Lewis would turn to his bandmates and jam with them, tearing on the electric guitar while the drummer pounded intensely on the drums. There was a new harshness to these sounds in performance that was exciting and different. 

Lewis' sound isn’t purely melancholic and depressing, although it has those moments, but songs like ‘Petals’ and ‘Seventeen’ have a lightness and a joy that was communicated so amazingly. Everyone in the small room felt the emotion like waves that emanated from Lewis and passed over the crowd. Although I was alone, I felt connected to all the people there. After an encore around 10:15PM, the small crowd flooded out and into the alleyway, and I weaved between it as I rushed through the busy sparkling Edinburgh streets to make my 10:30PM bus home.