MJ Lenderman & The Wind at the Garage (Night 2)

MJ Lenderman & The Wind

Hollow Hand

The Garage, 19 November 2024

I was back at the Garage tonight to catch night two of MJ Lenderman's sold out London shows, and like last night it was a beautiful thing to be part of. I really haven't felt this excited about a (relatively) new artist for such a long time.I can't even remember the last time I felt so sad that a concert was over, maybe when I reached the end of Neil Young's Hammersmith residency back in 2008, when I went to five out of the six shows he played there. Fortunately I'll be seeing Lenderman again next year at the Electric Ballroom but that's in June, over six months away! Until then the memories of these extraordinary shows will hopefully tide me over, because I really do feel I witnessed something special tonight and last night.

Once again Hollow Hand opened and I must say I enjoyed them more this time, maybe because I was now a little more familiar with their songs. I'm pretty sure it was exact same set list as last night, down to the same Michael Hurley cover, a new song called Heavy Metal T-Shirt and a storming end number that again reminded me of Wilco at their Krautrock-inspired best. They were very cool and they definitely went down well with the crowd, maybe a little better too than last night as I couldn't hear talking this time around.

Lenderman and his band, like before, took to the stage to a reggae tune, but this time they didn't start with the more gentle sounds of the title track of Manning Fireworks but immediately went full blast with Rudolph. I don't know why, but tonight the band seemed to have more purpose and were fully charged from the start, where last night, even though I loved every second of it, it almost felt like they were warming up and just having fun for the first few numbers.

The second song was an absolutely thrilling surprise, Toontown from Boat Songs, it sounded heavy and yearning and gnarly, Lenderman grimacing as he sang "now I'm crying in the bathroom." The whole band felt like they were full of pent-up energy that was just finally being released as they thrashed away at their instruments at the end of the song. It was so exhilarating to watch and hear.

Then there was a trio of tracks from the new record which all just beautifully flowed into each other, all full of life and vigor: Joker Lips, Wristwatch (already sounding like a classic and everyone loudly singing the "himbo dome" line) and best of all a powerful and fiery version of She's Leaving You, which left me breathless. At the end the chap next to me, who I had been chatting to, turned to me grinning and said simply, "wow!" It really was one of those moments.

This whole time Lenderman hardly said a word (I think he may have thanked us for coming a few songs in and that's it), and looked intently serious the whole time although I did see a few sly smiles while he was trading guitar licks with guitarist Jon Samuels (the Jim Martin lookalike who entertainingly threw his hair around like a proper rock madman). 

The feelgood You Have Bought Yourself A Boat, brought a lot of cheers (and cheer!), but the punky mayhem of SUV was even more thrilling, especially as tonight it morphed into an older song, Inappropriate at the end. 

Catholic Priest and Rip Torn slowed things down a little and

gave everyone a chance to breathe but the energy was turned up again for On My Knees and Bark At The Moon (I love Lenderman's little "arwoos!" at the end), which once again turned into a feedback frenzy that had everyone, from the keyboardist, to the peddle steel player and, of course, both guitarists, bashing away at their instruments to make a wall of feedbacking sounds that would have made Sonic Youth proud. This then turned into a stunning and dark version of No Mercy, a song that couldn't be more grim and angry, with Lenderman spiting out the lyrics "I will be your enemy, I will show you no mercy, I will show you no sympathy" before launching into a long, emotion filled guitar solo worthy of Neil Young at his most doomy. It left me speechless, it was that good.

It felt right then to have the more light-hearted and sweeter moment of Manning Fireworks here, it proved to be even better placed in the middle of the show than as the opener the previous night, working in beautiful contrast to the heaviness of No Mercy and was delightful. The crowd was then so ready to hear the brilliant Hangover Game, while the band seemed to have fun playing the rarer track Basketball #2, particularly the fluttering guitar part, which had Samuels grinning and raising his guitar every time he played it. 

TLC Cagematch once again sounded beautiful and emotional and You Don't Know The Shape I'm In, brought a nice shuffling, countrified moment (I love the line "We sat under a half-mast McDonalds' flag, broken birds tumble fast past by window").

I wondered whether they would play the new track Pianos again tonight, but this time they left it almost to the end, with Lenderman, like last time, explaining that the track was on the charity compilation Cardinals At The Window, benefiting flood relief in North Carolina, where he's from. This was the most he spoke all night and even this was way less than he had said the previous night (where he talked about how they finally had clean running water all these weeks on after the hurricane). It seemed like he wanted to let the music do the talking tonight and fit as many songs in as possible, which was more than fine with me, and I loved the feeling of determination tonight. It was certainly felt on the song Pianos, which again turned into a Crazy Horse-style frenzy of guitar solos and feedback. Naturally I loved it.

As the guys were letting their instruments make all manner of spooky, fuzz-filled sounds, a chap behind me kept calling out "Jake! Jake! Will you play Live Jack? Follow this one with Live Jack!" Samuels looked visibly annoyed by this interruption of his soloing and amusingly when they did go into the next track, it was the far more rousing Knockin, which to be fair is a far more appropriate song to end the main set on.

Obviously, after last night, I knew there would be an encore, but the band took longer to come back this time. Like before though, the bassist came back first and screamed "LONDON!!!!" like a true rock beast. "There might be potential for some more music," he told us. "I'm always up for playing more songs, but the rest of the guys might need more persuasion," basically encouraging us to cheer and clap even louder, even though, of course, at this point we could now see the guys on their way back to the stage, thankfully.

Lenderman told us that they were going to be recording something for BBC 6 in the next few days and had been working out this next track, a cover for the session, and this was the first time they had played it in front of an audience. 

He encouraged us to sing along and help them if we knew the words but it turned out to be a Counting Crows song called A Long December, which I didn't know (I think Counting Crows were always bigger in the US than the UK). After the thrill of hearing him cover Neil Young last night and also hearing that they've been covering various Warren Zevon songs on other nights, it was probably, I must admit, the only slightly disappointing moment of the night, but it did sound nice otherwise.

I had hoped they might play You Are Every Girl To Me, particularly as in the past they often play it before Tastes Just Like It Costs, but alas for me it wasn't to be. That said, the latter song still sounded incredible and I was more than thankful to hear it live again, as not only does it sound so much better live than on record (and it's incredible on the record too) but it's probably my favourite ever MJ Lenderman song. So what better way to send me off after my two nights of Lenderman and his fine band.

Lenderman then said, "that's it, that's the final song", waved, blew a kiss to the crowd and he and the band were gone. What a man, what a band, what a show and what an incredible two nights for me. How lucky am I to have been there for both? I can't wait for next year to hopefully experience it all over again!