Since the release of his second effort I Love You, Honeybear last year, Josh Tillman, under the alias Father John Misty, has become something of a phenomenon. After spending years in relative obscurity (and drumming for Fleet Foxes), Tillman’s reinvention as a louche country soul superstar who’s as much known for his on stage antics as his wryly sardonic romantic ballads. It’s the type of miraculous transformation that’s managed to pack out venue after venue and it’s no different in Gateshead.
Texans Khruangbin couldn’t be any more different to Tillman, though. Coming on stage all but unannounced, they launch into a set composed of songs from their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You and it’s a mostly instrumental, somewhat laid back affair filled with slap bass, jazz drum skiffs and waves of psychedelic guitar riffs that occasionally border on the virtuoso. The fact that the smorgasbord of genres they blend together doesn’t end up sounding terribly try-hard is testament to the trio’s musicianship. Laura Lee makes her bass sing as much as Mark Speer has a knack for infectious guitar licks, with Donald Johnson holding it all together with his gentle yet deeply rhythmic drumming.
Khruangbin’s set is understated, the trio deciding to let the music talk rather than resorting to theatrics. This subtlety is instantly erased when Tillman and his band take to the stage. Even when he’s playing guitar, as with ‘Chateau Lobby #4 (C for Two Virgins),’ Tillman attempts to put on a show, swinging his hips and kicking back and forth, making sure that, no matter how much they might want to look away, the audience’s eyes are continually drawn to his magnetic figure. Most of the time he’s off the leash. During the rollicking, toe-tapping ‘I’m Writing A Novel,’ he exaggeratedly parades around the stage while spotlights flash red, white and blue, Tillman clearly taking a tongue-in-cheek slant on the All American, Glen Campbell tinged country showmanship his songs continually draw on. At other times, as with ‘When You’re Smiling and Astride Me’ and ‘I Love You Honeybear,’ he wanders the stage in a seemingly lovelorn daze, every word he sings dripping in overwrought emotional sincerity as he grasps at his own heart and often falls to his knees.
For ‘Bored in the USA,’ his Bruce Springsteen referencing diatribe about the state of the country that attacks his own “useless education,” Tillman wanders almost aimlessly, his actions mirroring the song’s many comments on where on Earth America is headed. He grabs a fan’s phone and begins to film the audience before doing an extreme close up of his own eyes while continuing to ramble almost lethargically through the song. Tillman’s interactions with the audience don’t end there, though he does pick on some curiously random topics when addressing them. “What’s a cockwomble?” he asks, with some audience members furnishing him with answers that included one simple reply of “David Cameron.” “I don’t think it’ll enter my everyday lexicon. It seems a bit too… cuddly,” Tillman replies.
Tillman may not be a fan of cuddliness, but he is a fan of downright dirtiness. “Play something sexy?” he responds to a cry. “What have I been doing all night? Aren’t you hard yet?” While most of his songs are dripping in off-kilter Romanticism, playing a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’ (his “favourite love song”) in the encore gives Tillman the opportunity to throw himself around the stage and thrust his hips like an oversexed madman. Somehow, though, even when he screams the infamous line “I want to fuck you like an animal,” he makes it seem like an irrepressible urge of desire than an act of depravity. When the encore ends, Tillman still refuses to leave the stage. He shakes almost every hand in the front row in a touching display of affection towards his fans. In the background, Drake raps “if I die today I’d be a motherfucking legend.” You can’t help but feel that might be true for Father John Misty.
Image: derekseky
