A Night Out with… Kevin Morby
Morby defies the weather Gods with summer love.
Kevin Morby, live at the Rote Fabrik, Zürich, 14 July 2026.
The traditional Zurich summer thunderstorms arrived thankfully about two hours before the official start, but nevertheless more rain was predicted. The brave decision to hold the concert outside anyway was, however, justified as a stage full of sunflowers saw off any threat of a downpour, and the whole show accompanied a glorious summer evening. Those who decided to prioritise a World Cup semi-final missed a treat.
A peace-loving hippy vibe on a par with The Duke and the King’s performance at El Lokal many years back was the reward for the hardy souls who came to see the man responsible for what is unarguably 2026’s current album of the year Little Wide Open, Morby’s homage to his Midwest life of recent years before a decision to soon move back to the West Coast with Katie ‘Waxahatchee’ Crutchfield and new baby in tow.
The first half of the concert was dominated by the first half of the new album with “Die Young” and “Javelin” personal highlights, but really who can nitpick. “Natural Disaster” didn’t seem to miss Lucinda Williams’ perfect mid-song southern drawl, as Morby and his excellent band shared the spotlight, none more so than guitarist Cyrus Gengras and particularly violinist Rachel Baiman, whose backing vocals helped to recapture the album perfectly as well as adding an almost orchestral texture to Morby’s laidback and understated style. With Andrew Barr of the Barr Brothers on drums the band was becoming an assembly of Americana/alt folk legends.
On we moved with Morby playing some ‘classics’ as he termed them, including three tracks from 2022’s excellent This Is a Photograph including the title track, “Five Easy Pieces” and the crowd pleaser “Rock Bottom”. These excursions into the past were interspersed with the song “Little Wide Open” itself, a song that would seem to define the summer of ’26 in the same way as “Whiter Shade of Pale” defined that of ’67. Blissful, unhurried and staggeringly beautiful the only precipitation of the night could be seen in the eyes of the young lovers as they swayed and sang along like some Woodstock photo. Before long it was time for them to finish off with “Dandelion” making it eight from the new album and a marvellous rendition of his “Beautiful Strangers”, written as a response to the Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris, and a song that the great Mavis Staples covered on last year’s Sad and Beautiful World, an honour which Morby is still trying hard to fathom.
As feel good concerts go this one takes some beating. 2026 seems to be the year that Morby gets the recognition he is long overdue.