True to form in his typical Mid-Western drawl, the haunting stories of former Red House Painters and current Sun Kil Moon spokesperson, Mark Kozelek hit the warm confines of the East on this fitting rain-soaked weekend. It was in fact so quiet you could literally hear the clock ticking on the side of the band stage, right near Kozelek’s acoustic playing partner, Red House Painters guitarist Phil Carney.

Both performers drift through a myriad of heartbreaking tales taken predominantly from Kozelek’s Nights LP and seminal Sun Kil Moon classics, 2003s Ghosts Of The Great Highway ( Glenn Tipton, Salvador Sanchez and Floating), and from this years April release he gives Unlit Hallway and The Light an impressive acoustic-based touch.

Carney is on the receiving end of a few jibes from Kozelek, particularly when he loses his focus and plays out of key early on. “What are you doin man? You’ve only got to remember three chords,” he expresses with a snickering laugh. You get the sense that Kozelek is an intensely private man – austere but filled with bundles of nervous energy and seriously focused on best serving the songs he creates. The same songs that can move an audience to tears, with goose pimples rising and shivers up the spine multiplying – and that’s exactly what we’re on the end of tonight.

Kozelek exchanges simple pleasantries with the crowd in between long, continuous guitar tune-ups. “So what’s the deal with Australia, man? I just can’t figure this place out!” confesses a bewildered Kozelek. “It feels like Toronto or Oslo or Helsinki or somethin’ so what defines Australia?” Silence greets this probing question until a lone voice speaks out; “Toast and Vegemite”. Enough said.

As the Kozelek vocal is mixed in with a healthy dose of reverb to best pull off his record sound, the great man delivers Michigan and Drop from Nights and Gentle Moon and Carry Me Ohio taken from the sublime Ghosts record and gives off such an aura as he delivers note perfect with the hazy intonations in his vocal that makes hairs stand on the backs of necks.

If you’d just stumbled into the East and had never had the pleasure of actually being acquainted with the depressingly sombre Mark Kozelek’s music, you would think that the guy was playing one long 100 minute plus song, broken up with guitar tuning. Such is the manner that his stories and the way he explains them are eerily similar in tone.

But of course for those who hang on every word that the 41 year old spits out, this is purely moody slowburn heaven and when the Ohio native heads into the ten minute long Lost Verses before turning his attention to the introspective Lucky Man, the heartfelt gratitude and applause can be heard ringing out into the dark night skies and streets of Lygon and beyond.