There’s something cathartic about singing the words “You Don’t Know What Shape I’m In” to a room full of strangers. Not that the crowd wasn’t singing along for the most part every other song MJ Lenderman played at Montreal’s Fairmount Theatre, but these are the lyrics – “What else can you say for help/A friend with a broken heart/You don’t know what I’m in” – Lenderman by Hurricane Sung shortly after destroying the home state of North Carolina, it seems to be the questionable situation we are all in.
The 25-year-old Lenderman is currently on tour with his five-piece backup band (MJ Lenderman & the Wind) to promote his fifth album. Manning fireworks. I wanted to see this show in Toronto, but it sold out almost immediately. I think less people know Lenderman in Montreal, even though there’s something about him that fits better there. I saw him on the street a few hours before his set, when he was having dinner with a friend. A tall guy with a short side, he’s hard to miss, but he looked like any other university student in the city, with his T-shirt and tousled hair. “He’s the one,” I said to my friend, who was not familiar with him or his music. I immediately felt stupid; Lenderman is so polite in person that even pointing it out seems somewhat intrusive.
“Why is he so shy?” I heard this kid asking his friends for a song or two. And it’s true that Lenderman didn’t interact much with the audience. He was actually the calmest person on stage, acting as the eye of the band’s storm. But the lo-fi Lenderman seemed appropriate. Leaning over his guitar, with his eyes closed, almost mesmerizing rather than screaming, he reminded me of ’90s indie frontmen like Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith. Lenderman falls into that category of musicians who give the impression that they are not that thrilled to be on stage. From another perspective, he was like the folk musicians of the 60s or 70s, in the informal way he handled the stage. Lenderman would talk to his band between performances, as if we weren’t even there, as if they were just jamming for each other in an empty coffee house or bar. At other moments it felt like we were at one of those hippie festivals where everything is jazzy, different bands are playing together at the drop of a hat, the stage is spread out and even famous musicians come along with the crowd. Have been. Amanda Petrusich captures this strange time-motion that characterizes Lenderman and his music New Yorker profile,manning fireworks It could have been released in 1975, or 1994, or 2003, but that doesn’t mean it’s intentionally nostalgic; Lenderman is simply making the kind of hot and bitter rock and roll that has felt out of place since 1968, when Neil Young released his self-titled debut.
In The RingerEric Ducker described Lenderman’s sound as “a blend of ’90s indie scrappiness, ’70s colorful rock, and mesmerizing classical country with pedal steel guitar.” and there Was It was not surprising when he announced during the encore that he was going to do a cover of the Silver Jews’ 1998 album American waters (“The Wild Kindness”), after covering Smog’s “37 Push Ups” (from the 1993 album) Julius Caesar) during the show. For their final performance, Lenderman brought their opener, Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band back on stage for a rendition of “Werewolves of London”, Warren Zevon’s brilliant 1978 track. Both bands took over the entire stage; Davis actually screamed while Lenderman backed away. Lenderman noted that he learned songwriting from Davis, “good natured barfi“A journeyman musician with an impressive body of work of his own, and he happily shared the spotlight.
Like a lot of old Lenderman fans (when I say old, I mean over 35), I discovered him through Waxahatchee, specifically through his work on “Right Back to It” (tigers blood2024). He comes into the song a minute later, floating in the background (“Been yours for so long, come back immediately iiiiiit”). The way Katie Crutchfield’s twig moves along her mournful gravel satisfies a longing I didn’t know I had. It’s very rare to hear the sound of a man supporting a woman, and yet nestled in the background, Lenderman elevates the track elsewhere. The song would be incomplete without his voice. It reminds me of those old folk tunes that work fine on their own, but are more effective as a duet. “Girl from the North Country” with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash is an example that comes to mind, two people mourning the loss of their one “true love”, but together.
From “Right Back to It” I heard more DIY stuff from Lenderman than before. manning fireworks (For which he deliberately went to more studios). I must say I prefer the former sound; There’s an irritability about it that suits him better. “Knockin’ if you like” is my favorite listen what i meanSeeing Lenderman live, where his voice became part of the wall of sound, reminded me of that bedroom quality. The show is being sold as MJ Lenderman and The Wind, which is meant to be different. It’s this solitary vulnerability at her core that leads her to say with shock more than once in response to rowdy audiences: “Hey, y’all.”
At the same time, at various points in the show, long jams occurred that seemed almost mystical. At first, during these extended instrumentals, I thought Lenderman might be losing the audience, which already seemed to be in the dark with the smog covering it. But then something opened up in the unfamiliarity of that formless, omnipresent sound that didn’t provide the dopamine hit of a hook. My eyes darted toward the ceiling, then closed again, and it slowly began to feel as if I was part of some kind of collective meditation that I never wanted to end. I’m pretty sure that’s why when the lights came up after two hours, the show felt so epic. During the encore, Lenderman continued to sing “one more song”, to the extent that someone in the audience shouted his own song at him: “We’ve heard that song before!” They played a lot of great songs, but the atmosphere they created, the almost sacred dialogue, stuck.