Concert Review: Jonathan Richman

This past Wednesday, my sister and I went to see Jonathan Richman at the Middle East Upstairs, his second of three consecutive shows there. I'd never been to a show Upstairs, and it was a perfect little venue for JR with a capacity of only 120 or so. Richman tends to stray away from the microphone frequently, but we had no trouble hearing his singing and strumming, even un-miked.

How to describe Jonathan Richman? For anybody reading this who has no idea who Richman is, you probably actually do. He's the guy playing guitar with his drummer (Tommy Larkin, who continues to play with him at every show) through the Farrelly Brothers movie, There's Something About Mary. Richman is now nearly 60, and he has been a quiet presence--both literally and figuratively--in the American music scene for most of his adult life. But I'm not here to write a biography; you can go to Wikipedia for that. I'm here to say what he means to me.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my musical comfort food. I'm hoping to do a post before too long about my comfort food albums of the past decade, but Jonathan Richman is a full-on comfort food artist. He is for many an acquired taste, and some people never understand his appeal. His singing voice is uneven, his guitar playing is quirky. His songs can range form silly to political to romantic to incredibly sad. Sometimes a single song can be a little bit of all those things.

On stage, as my sister says, he can be a bit of a man-child. My sister (who quite frankly, is much better at this type of thing than I am, though I'm the one who continues to barf my opinions onto the internets) compared him to the 8-year-old boy who's parents make him come out to play songs for their adult party. He can waiver between nervousness and showing off in the blink of an eye. At times it looks like he's really enjoying himself; other times he looks antsy to get off the stage.
That's how he's been every time I've seen him--this was my third Jonathan Richman show in the last 10 years. The audience at the Middle East was noticeably older. This was the first show I've been to in ages in which I didn't feel like the oldest person in the crowd. In fact, I felt like one of the youngest. But Richman makes everyone feel young with his energy. Twice during the show he managed to sustain a sing-along. One occurred during his always entertaining rendition of "I Was Dancing at the Lesbian Bar", during which he not only did his special hip-shaking dance, but traded his guitar for a set of jingle bells, then a cowbell. I've seen him play this song at every show, and it's always one of my favorite parts. Years down the road, if someone asks me what my favorite musical memories are, watching Jonathan Richman play this song will almost certainly be in the top 10. He also whipped up a sing-along towards the end with a bizarre little anti-cell phone song. Richman is pretty clearly not a fan of technology (he has no official website), and I believe him when he says he will never own a cell phone. The song was particularly apt for my sister and I, who were just talking before the show about how we rarely use our cell phones. They are a necessary evil for me, so I'm with Mr. Richman on this one.

The bottom line is, I will likely continue to go to his shows as long as keeps touring. Neither his albums nor his live performance are for everybody, but for those of us who "get" Jonathan Richman, they are incredibly rewarding. He may have the saddest eyes I've ever seen, but he still manages to elicit a deep sense of joy in me every time I see him play. I'm generally a pretty happy guy, but though my children can often raise my happiness to the level of joy, it's rare for a musician to do so. To experience that feeling in room full of strangers, listening to music I love...that's really something.