Jonathan Richman

Jonathan Richman does not, at present, offer an “Evening With…” type of show. In fact, his performance at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern was quite thoroughly mapped out beforehand in an email that stated that there would be no opening act (there wasn’t) and that Jonathan would be starting promptly at nine (he did). His stage setup is shockingly minimal, especially given how much of his life must have been given to performing music at this point: Tommy Larkins’ drums sit on stage left, carried by a microphone or two, and Jonathan has two mics along with a small processing rig for the one that captures his small acoustic guitar, allowing for a few basic delays and effects when he deems them necessary. In spite of knowing that his setup and his music is quite minimal, especially lately, it’s still a shock to see a performer so utterly confident in himself and virtually nothing else to hold his set together. This also lent itself to being the best sounding show I’ve seen in years; I’ve never been able to follow a performer’s every word, or every drum hit, or every note, in a decent-sized space ever before, and I was really pleased with having that option for the first time.

The brief set drew heavily from 2008’s Because Her Beauty is Raw and Wild, with only a few detours outside that record (“He Gave Us The Wine to Taste,” “Let Her Go Into The Darkness,” “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar”), and though the songs didn’t blur together, and “Lesbian Bar” prompted the most successful singalong and accompanying handclaps, what Jonathan played was at least partially irrelevant. Jonathan Richman transcends any songs he plays, using them as a springboard for all sorts of asides, translations, dance moves, drum solos, and guitar twirling. Almost once during every song he opted to step away from the microphone altogether and deliver a few lines with no amplification, most of which was still audible, and every one of these moments was met with cheers, applause, wide-eyed looks that nearly matched the one projecting upon them. Richman, at 58, is still an utterly positive force on-stage and in-song, though he certainly seems more adult than he did on any Modern Lovers record. During one song I didn’t recognize (quite possibly new), he sang about how much more exciting his living room is than an electric basement party downtown, and proceeded to admit to having never read The Three Musketeers before, explaining how it’s “funny, even to adults like you and me,” with the entire room laughing with him. His presence was everything, and it was astounding to take in.

He ended his set by saying that he wasn’t going to wear out his welcome, then left about an hour after he began. The lights stayed down, and he returned for an encore before explaining that this wasn’t supposed to happen—that he hadn’t told the lighting people to turn the lights back on and that he wasn’t a fan of encores, but that he’d play one for us given the circumstances. Someone shouted a story at him about how Willem de Kooning heard the self-titled Modern Lovers album and “fucking loved it,” thus making Richman an indirect influence upon at least some of his work, according to the guy telling the story. Richman seemed utterly flattered, thanked him for telling him, then played “Surrender,” from 1996’s Surrender to Jonathan, nearly tearing up halfway through. I never got to hear what I still think is Richman’s best song—the six-minute version of “That Summer Feeling” from I, Jonathan (1992)—and I would’ve stayed for much longer, but it’s hardly a complaint that he left us all wanting more.