Jon Brion's performance @ Largo, August 22nd, 2003

[neatahwanta]

(Posted at Jon Brion's Yahoo Group about last Friday's Largo show)

From:   Jake Gideon Posner
Date:  Thu Aug 28, 2003  7:37 am
Subject:  [Embrionic] Largo 8/22

For those of you who were fortunate enough to be at Largo last Friday this
review will inevitably disappoint and frustrate you. All I can say is...
what do you care? You were there.

Friday's show was truly a feat of musical genius. It will be very
difficult to communicate just how amazing it was through spouting off set
lists and merely describing the events of the set, but maybe I can capture
just a smidgen of what it was like to be at Largo last Friday night.

The evening began a little bit earlier than usual for me and my girlfriend,
Natasha. We weren't sure how the New York Times article was going to
affect the turnout. As far as we could tell it didn't seem to be having
much of an influence when we arrived. There was a decent line for the bar
and the usual line of coveted reservation holders.

A few of the other regulars and I came to the conclusion that most NYT
readers would probably just see the article, say something like, "Hmm," and move on with their lives. One notable exception to that theory was Sydney Pollack. Normally I'm not really one to parade star sightings around, but I've got to admit that this was pretty cool. He seemed like the perfect example of an active NYT reader who took the extra step and actually came down to the club. Oddly enough we had just been watching IFC's "Decade Under the Influence," which he was heavily featured in. It turned out to be a good night for him to have been there. More on that in a bit.

Opening up for Jon was Tom Brosseau. I think Tom now holds the record for most opening slots at Largo that I have seen. Flanagan obviously loves
this guy. And for good reason. He's an amazing songwriter whose tunes
have a uniquely spontaneous air about them. Most of them have no apparent structure or refraining melody, yet they remain interesting and memorable.  I guess the closest thing to a genre would be 1920-1940s style folk and blues. Like something you might hear a railroad hopping hobo sing during the great depression. He seems more and more comfortable with the crowd every time I see him. He usually gets a few good laughs during his sets, which I'm always impressed by seeing as his songs are the most depressing things ever (excluding most Nick Drake songs and the eels' Electro Shock Blues).

Jon joined Tom on piano for his last song. I believe it was a cover of an
old folk tune, but I have no idea what it was. The crowd seemed to enjoy
Mr. Brosseau's set immensely and I'm sure he'll be back again and again.

After quite a long intermission between sets, though not unusually long,
Paul F. Tompkins made his way out on stage to introduce Jon. His booming
voice blasted through Largo like a grenade. Someone wasn't manning the
master fader apparently and the mic was set way too hot.

"Whoa, that even frightened me," Paul said as Scott Fritz (in the sound
booth) quickly adjusted the level. Paul did a little spiel about how
terrible Flanagan was at introductions, which was why he took it upon
himself to spare the audience and do the intro himself. He asked the crowd
if they had enjoyed their dinners. The response was not overwhelmingly
positive. "Well, you don't come for the cuisine," PFT said, "You know we
did get a B." This was in reference to the health department grading
system, which apparently thought Largo was only worthy of a 3.0 GPA. By
the time Paul was done he was apologizing for being just as bad as
Flanagan. Personally I like both of their intro styles. In any case, out
came Jon and so the set commenced.

The first words out Jon's mouth were, "Bob, there's a buzz on stage." I
guess this was some sort of inside joke with Bob Bruno, Jon's stage tech.
An instant later Jon was at the piano for his weekly pre-opening song
meander.

"I first set my hands on a piano at the age of two," Jon started, "I am now
almost forty. This set will include around twenty-five songs. That means
I have spent roughly six months practicing for each of the songs I will
play."

After some noodling he finally settled on "Strings That Tie to You" for his
opener, but to those who know the song it would have been practically
unrecognizable. The only thing that really remained were the lyrics. This
version was a heavily vocoded, bizarre revamping of Jon's old tune. The
song was cool, but it didn't give much of an indication of where the night
might go. The tone of the set was still up in the air when Jon went
straight into the opening strands of "Here We Go." Always an appropriate
song for early in the set.

After "Here We Go" Jon said his hellos to the crowd. He then played a
rare, solo piano version of "I Was Happy With You," a song that he almost
always builds up with a full arrangement. The interesting thing about that
song is that when you hear it with its infectious, Stevie Wonder-style drum
beat, you might think that the beat is the heart of the song, but when Jon
plays it with just piano and vocals you almost immediately forget that
there is any other way for it to sound. It's just that good of a song.

After "I Was Happy" Jon lazily noodled his way into a Scott Joplin rag. I
believe it was The Maple Leaf Rag. He played at a slower pace than you
might usually hear it.

"The thing that Scott Joplin always used to say about his rags," Jon
started, "was that people played them too fast. They were supposed to be
more like this. And he would put little notes on the music saying, 'Slow
the fuck down.' But just like they used to tell you in high school health
class not to get high because it will make you go crazy and jump off
buildings, what they failed to mention was that it's also . . . . . . fun."

And with that Jon doubled the speed of his playing so that he sounded more like a player piano. He went through the main body of the song three or four times, speeding up with every pass. By the time he was on his final run through the song, he was playing so fast that you could barely hear individual notes, yet you knew they were there. When "lightning hands" finally finished the rag he bounded off of the piano bench and lunged for the main vocal mic at center stage. He was so manic that he misjudged and almost bashed his face into the mic. And that's when he said something that I can safely say I've never heard him say before.

"LET'S PARTY, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!"

The crowd was loving the sudden insanity. Jon jumped behind the drum set for the first time that night and pounded out an up-tempo rock beat. His next stop was the microKorg for a quick synth line. Before you knew it,
the Les Paul was in his clutches and he was working his way through the
bass line. It wasn't until then that I could tell what he was playing.
Before even getting to the rhythm guitar he started singing Cheap Trick's
"Surrender."

After "Surrender" Jon tried to keep the energy up by getting back behind
the drum set and leaning hard into the beat for "The Girl I Knew." He
built it up quickly, but little did the crowd know that they were in for a
marathon performance. Something Jon has been doing quite often lately is
building a song from the drums up, playing most of the song and then taking out everything but the drums. He then improvises and makes whatever noise he pleases for as long as he pleases, and then adds all the instruments back in for a reprise of the original tune. On Friday, "The Girl I Knew" was the song he decided to split in half.

First on his noise-making agenda was a random pedal-pushing experiment. He just started stepping on and off of his pedal board like a Stair-Master, producing all sorts of bizarre soundscapes with his guitar signal. When he felt he had explored that area enough, he made his way over to the piano and started playing random Jazz runs (is there any other kind?). It was a while before any recognizable melodies emerged, but eventually they did.

First came the theme from "Peter Gunn," then "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey," and finally, a rendition of Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)."

At least 20 minutes had gone by since Jon had started the song before he
returned to "The Girl I Knew," which was fine with me. I'm not sure the
entire audience appreciated the self-indulgence, but that's a big part of
what makes it a Jon Brion show. I think "Alone Again (Naturally)" had
appeased any impatience some of the crowd might have been feeling anyway.

Who doesn't love that song? Sydney Pollack sure does. It was fun to watch
him during the show. He was beside himself almost the entire time.

Jon took it down a few notches next with "We Died," a slow Randy
Newmanesque tune. "That wasn't much of a party song was it?" he said upon finishing it.

The next instrument of choice was a little tiny acoustic guitar that he
likes to play from time to time. It has a very old-timey sound to it.

"Play your favorite '20s song," a woman requested. Jon seemed stumped at first, not because he couldn't think of any, but because he could think of
too many. He settled on "Paper Moon" first, which was fantastic. Then he
went into Cole Porter's "Night and Day," and finished off the '20s with the
Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me."

He moved from the acoustic to the electric for a short set of originals,
which included "Same Mistakes," "I Wouldn't Have it Any Other Way," and
"Hook Line and Sinker."

"Over the years," Jon started, "I've really tried to keep the lack of
professionalism to a minimum. I think it's gotten better over time. I'm
not sure if it's a minimum, but it's definitely a smaller maximum."

He told the audience that they had a few choices. "We can either end this
thing right now and I won't think any less of you... I know it's been a
long night and if we stick around it's only gonna get longer." The crowd
didn't seem too keen on the idea of the night ending there if ever, so Jon
moved on to option two. "I can go away for a little while and then come
back for a second set." A few people were into this one, but most of the
crowd wanted to hear option three before they committed. "Or I can proceed to get publicly drunk in front of you and see where that takes us." I'll just let you guys guess which option won.

"Maybe I'll just play through every decade... We did the '20s... Yeah,
that's what I'm gonna do... So we're in the '30s now."

Jon took a seat at the piano and I think everybody knew they were about to be taken for a ride. He played a few bars of "Auld Lang Syne" to cue the
change over and then launched into "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

He then quickly made his way behind the drum set and started pounding out a big band rhythm on the floor tom. It was time for some Swing. From the drums he was back at the piano banging out Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)." I sure did miss the Chamberlin for this one. He had played this time once before when the Chamberlin was there, playing all the horn parts. But this version was still impressive. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" and "I Can't Get Started With You" rounded out the '30s and a few more strands of "Auld Lang Syne" brought things right into the '40s.

Jon started this decade out with some boogie-woogie piano that may very
well have been a song, but I don't know what it was. It just sounded like
good old boogie-woogie to me. After that came a bizzaro vocoder version of "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)." Apparently the manner in which he was playing the songs was not particularly relevant to the decade. I guess it wouldn't really be Jon Brion if he didn't fuck shit up a little bit, right?

"All or Nothing at All" was up next, followed by "'Round Midnight," a Jon
Brion favorite. And he finished the '40s off with "I Can't Help It (If I'm
Still in Love With You)."

The 1950s started out with some technical difficulties. I like to think
that that represented McCarthyism. Jon couldn't get any sound out of the
electric guitar.

"It's the '50s, there should be electricity, Bob," Jon said, maniacally
trying to remedy the problem. "1950 is grinding to a halt. Bob... wait,
there's no Bob in 1950, we've had a tear in the space time continuum."

Bob located the signal problem and the 1950s were back in business. The
decade started out very Les Paul-centric. Not really a surprise
considering the source. First up was "Vaya Con Dios," followed by "How
High the Moon." Jon has mastered the Les Paul sound, supplying his guitar
tone with copious amounts of slap-back and echo. After the Les
Paulverizing Jon played "Cry Me a River," "Blue Moon," and Buddy "Holly's
Words of Love," the latter with his usual vocal harmonizer on. Strangely
missing from the '50s was "Rock Around the Clock." It seemed inevitable,
but I guess this was the Jon Brion version of musical history and he wasn't
going to compromise that.

The '60s chimed in the way one might expect... with the opening chord of
"Hard Day's Night." Possibly the most recognizable single chord in the
history of music. Jon ran through a few famous guitar riffs, including
"Satisfaction," "Time of the Season," and "Sunshine of Your Love."

I was pretty sure I knew what was coming next, and with a few knocks of the skins I was proven correct. Jon built up "Tomorrow Never Knows" as fast as I've ever seen him. The seagulls and backward guitar riffs were all there as usual. He even included some organ via his MIDI guitar set-up. I
wasn't sure if it was on purpose or not because he was having some
technical difficulties with the MIDI on/off, but it sure sounded cool.

Jon finished the '60s off like any self-respecting American would... with
Jimi's rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." He supplied the bombs
bursting in air like Jimi did. Of course Jimi didn't have 8000 analog and
digital effects at his disposal... but who's counting?

"Auld Lang Syne" was ever-present to indicate the transitions from decade
to decade. The '70s kicked off with Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love," then
moved on to "Rebel Rebel" and "Anarchy in the UK." I think Jon was sort of rushing through a little faster at this point because he had already been
on stage for three hours plus. He played Devo's "Whip It," which I swear
was in the '80s and then went straight into Blondie's "Heart of Glass,"
which is one of my all-time favorite songs. In fact I used to listen to
"Whip It" and "Heart of Glass" ad-nauseum when I was five-years-old. Those songs represent my earliest musical memories, so it was pretty cool to hear Jon play them back to back.

The '80s opened with Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself." Even Flanagan
couldn't help but dance a little bit on his stool near the entrance. I
think everybody in that whole place was completely overwhelmed with glee at this point. Jon moved from Idol to U2's "I Will Follow," even supplying a full on Bono-clutching the mic stand-leaning out into the audience impression. From there he went into a very weird and short version of "Like a Virgin."

There was really only one way to start out the '90s. I know you're
probably thinking, "It must have been Poison's "Every Rose Has its Thorn,"
but I'm actually referring to Nirvana. "Lithium" was the song of choice.
And this is when things got a bit weird. I believe he went straight from
Nirvana in the '90s to Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head" in
ought-two, and then back to the '90s for Britney's "...Baby One More Time."

Jon was quite drunk by this point, having downed at least four or five
Guinnesses. Fueled by his inebriation he decided to start rapping. I'm
pretty sure he was just making up a rap because he didn't know any real
raps and wanted to get hip-hop into the equation somehow. I can't remember a single thing he said in the rap, but his rhyming skills were pretty impressive for a white boy from Connecticut.

For his good-byes Jon improvised to the melody of "Lithium." He thanked
the crowd in song and finished out the set with The Beatles' "The End."
The crowd went nuts... for good reason. But Jon wasn't quite finished yet.
He put his guitar down on the stage floor and started playing it with his
foot. Sadly for me I think he played better with his shoed foot than I
play with my hands. The set wasn't truly finished until he had broken the
head of his guitar off completely. With that he bowed and made his exit.

The audience continued to cheer until the music came on. Nobody was very quick to leave. I think everyone was spent. It had been quite a night.
Suze, one of the hardcore regulars, told me that this show was in her top 5
of all time, which is saying a lot since she's been going for as long as
Jon has been playing. I've been going for three years and it's certainly
up there for me as well. Hopefully this "review" will at least give a
glimpse of what it was like.

[aclockworkjj]

ok...seriously, does he play a set schedule...cause me and this hunny I know were thinkin' about going up there.  Or is it just fly by your pants...?

Edit: Nea...you rule, what are the chances of fiona poppin' up there?

[neatahwanta]

Go to the calender section of http://www.largo-la.com/largohome.html

They list the night's Jon performs...usually Friday nights.