MJ Lenderman at Rough Trade East

MJ Lenderman

Rough Trade East, 7 August 2024

It's always a pleasure to see an artist like MJ Lenderman in an intimate setting, even if it's in the back of a record shop like Rough Trade East! He only played for about 40 minutes but as his solo debut in London it really was something special.

I arrived at the store way too early but thankfully met some truly lovely people in line who I had a great chat with about music so it turned out to be a lovely experience. I was worried that, as Lenderman is a newer artist only in his 20s, there would only be younger people here for the performance but there was a great age range and thankfully I didn't stick out. After the horrible experience at the Stevie Nicks concert last month it was nice with this appearance and the Waxahatchee concert a couple of weeks back, to finally be among friendly, kind faces again with our mutual love of music bonding us. It has restored my faith once again I'm pleased to say.

Lenderman, tall and slim with Dylan-esque tousled hair, took to the stage smiling, taking up his guitar and launching immediately into the recently released song Joker Lips, from his forthcoming new record Manning Fireworks, which is out in September. Despite the fact he normally plays with a band (The Wind), it sounded loose and natural and it was great to hear his voice, cool and clear, while he's also clearly a fantastic guitar player.

The next song he had to restart as he said he hadn't played it live before. From the lyrics, I think it was the title track of the new album and it sounded like a potential new favourite. Everything that has been released from that record so far has been incredible and this was no exception. I think it's pretty much a given that album will be one of the best of 2024, certainly based on the songs he played from it tonight.

He didn't at all seem nervous, but told us this was his first time playing solo in London (he has played here with his other band Wednesday, who I am also seeing in a couple of weeks!). He asked us if we had seen the film Men In Black and of course, most of us had. "Well, then you'll know what this song is about," he said. It turns out it was a fantastic new song called Rip Torn (after the actor from that film), "how many of you have two names that mean the same thing?" he asked. It was a good point, definitely worthy of naming a song after!

The highlight for me was probably the song that turned me on to Lenderman in the first place, She's Leaving You, with its shades of J Mascis, Jason Molina and Neil Young (all very much my vibe as you know), which in no way suffered from the lack of a band, giving me chills as he closed his eyes and emotionally sang "It falls apart, we're all got work to do." Absolutely spellbinding and beautiful stuff! Halfway through (he asked for the time, so he knew how long he had left, we alerted him to the clock on the stage and he seemed amused and baffled by the 24 hour clock (they don't do military time in America!).

After treating us to a bunch of new tunes, he told us he was going to play some old songs now, in fact he even asked the audience for requests to which he was shouted down with too many titles to fulfill! He laughed and did play one though, Catholic Priest from his second album Ghost Of Your Guitar Solo, which was haunting and moving.

He ends with the single Knockin', and actually has the crowd singing along, as well as showing off his guitar skills, leaving us with no doubt that there is something incredibly special about MJ Lenderman and his heartfelt songs, full of longing and catholic guilt. 

He also seems amazingly sweet and charming, as proved by how nice he was to everyone at the signing after (since the record isn't out yet, everyone was given a poster for him to sign instead). I wasn't going to hang around for it but I loved the show so much I thought I would wait to at least get a poster and got to shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed it. He was a sweetie and didn't disappoint. 

I'm very much looking forward to seeing him again playing with Wednesday in a couple of weeks. He's actually playing with his solo band in November for two nights at the Garage, but it's sold out and I don't have a ticket! Hopefully I will get to see the full-band MJ Lenderman experience soon though because if this is anything to go by it will be incredible.