Last night, Jonathan Richman came to Kansas City, wide-eyed and inscrutably eccentric, and the good-sized, mostly older crowd that gathered at the Record Bar seemed to return his guileless stare and revel in his eccentricity.
I've seen performers take over a space and "make it their own," but never quite like Richman did last night. The lights were down. The air-conditioner was way, way off. Richman and his drumming accompanist Tommy Larkins set up side by side at the front of the stage and ran their sound through their own PA, which was quieter than the house's by several decibels. As Richman, holding his classical guitar in a tight grip (he uses no strap), launched into his 20-song set with "Take Me to the Plaza," "Let Her Go Into the Darkness" and "He Gave Us the Wine to Taste It," people gave up stadium-worthy cheers.
And Richman was on -- his eyes darting this way and that constantly, his fingers plucking deft arpeggios and fluttering over the nylon strings like a flamenco guitarist, eyebrows arched and lips curled back from his teeth in a half-incredulous-half-mischievous (but probably just natural) expression. And in the beginning, people seemed to react to it with a kind of joyful gratitude, as if to say, Wow, the real Jonathan Richman is even more Jonathan Richman than I expected!
But by the third or fourth song, the people crowded down front were finding out that they would have to adjust to the heat. That they would, in fact, have to sweat and be uncomfortable through this show, or else retreat to the bar where it was a bit cooler but where the experience of the show would not nearly be as satisfying.
For the most part, they stayed. Jonathan won. It helped that during the fourth song, a minimalist acoustic (a phrase that encompasses Richman's entire M.O.) reworking the Modern Lovers' classic "Pablo Picasso," Richman stopped singing the song's lyrics and, in this really cute, disarming way (which is not his only but his most prominent of ways), explained that he'd insisted the air be turned off because he was fussy about sound.
And then, a few songs later, he convinced us why it was worth it. The eighth song of the night, "When We Refuse to Suffer," is a call to reconnecting with reality -- not in the sense of being more rational but in facing the world with clarity and without reliance on things that instill false comfort. When we refuse to suffer/That is when the Prozac wins/When we refuse to suffer/That is when the air conditioning has won, he sang. And the crowd laughed and sweated gladly, even during his newer songs, much of whose lyrics are in Spanish, French and other Romance tongues.
"Childlike" is a word that seems to pop up a lot in discussion of Richman, and for good reason. When the crowd clapped along last night, Richman became visibly more excited, occasionally laying down his guitar and dancing a jig on the lip of the stage. When it was time for Larkins (who, by the way, is an amazing and intuitive drummer) to do a solo, Richman would up a cowbell or reindeer-bell shaker and step out of the spotlight. The height of stage antics came with his hilarious post-Lovers favorite "I Was Dancing In the Lesbian Bar," during which Richman turned the chorus over to the crowd and danced like a wildman, bobbing and flailing his arms like one of those anthropomorphic windsock creatures wireless retailers are known to set up in parking lots over giant fans.
Richman's childlikeness is deceiving. He can be cute and silly, sure, but in his most moving songs about childhood, Richman sings as an adult (a 57-year-old one, to be precise) looking back on childhood with longing and wonder and, most of all, with a sense of humor born out of the wisdom-giving pain of growing up. This stanza from "That Summer Feeling," last night's halfway-point song sums it up perfectly (emphasis added).
When even fourth grade starts looking good,Which you hated.
And first grade's looking good too,
Overrated.
And you boys long for some little girl
That you dated,
Do you long for her of for the way you were?
That summer feeling is gonna haunt you
One day in your life.
Epilogue
After the one-song encore of the brilliant and moving "You Must Ask the Heart," Jonathan announced that that was all, and I half expected him to drop through a trap door and ride a magical mine car to his next gig or maybe step outside, grab a kite tail and sail away. Instead, he put a jacket on over his sweated-out longsleeved shirt and made his way into the crowd, shaking hands, nodding enthusiastically, and giving men his own age brotherly, full-frontal hugs.
I moved in closer and noticed that though he was gesturing expressively, he wasn't speaking to anyone. Like a silent-film comedian, he was miming all his responses. After a minute, he held up a finger, then darted off to the stage. He came back with a pen and small pad of paper and wrote, in all caps, something pretty close to: "There is nothing wrong with my voice. Since my vocal cord polyp of two years ago, doctor's orders are no speaking after singing nor talking in noisy places." He then proceeded to hug, nod, sign autographs, listen, smile and voicelessly but ardently connect with his fans for the next hour -- including posing for an arm-wrestle shot with doorman Matt Larson -- until the crowd had dwindled down and it was time for him and Tommy to put away their equipment.
My Best Attempt at a Set List (If I get any titles wrong, which I most certainly will, I apologize -- feel free to correct me, gently, in the comments.)
Take Me to the Plaza
Let Her Go Into the Darkness
He Gave Us the Wine to Taste It
Pablo Picasso
Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild
Blowin' in the Wind/City Lights
When We Refuse to Suffer
Celestial
That Summer Feeling
My Affected Accent
I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar
[a song with the word "enticing" used a lot and half the lyrics in French]
No One Was Like Vermeer
[sorry, no clue]
We'll Spill Things[?]
Springtime in New York
The Smell of Her Coat[?]
encore, sorta
You Must Ask the Heart
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I'm glad this got reviewed. I think it was worth the heat. I was by some idiot people though who wouldn't shut up. Who cares that your coworkers have grandchildren or your tape deck doesn't work. I know I didn't pay Celine Dion priced admission but still I paid to hear Jojo sing and not your banal conversations.
Jonathan Richman is great, but so is air conditioning. I've been lucky enough to see him a few times in the past, so I guess I can feel OK about missing this one.
My family ranges in age from 17 to 49 and we all love Jonathan Richman's music. We came over from Lawrence, and it was every bit as wonderful as I could have hoped. I missed him in Lawrence and can only hope he will choose to come back sometime. We will be there. Thanks Jonathan
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