MJ Lenderman & The Wind at the Garage (Night 1)

MJ Lenderman & The Wind

Hollow Hand

The Garage, 18 November 2024

This was everything I hoped it would be! And I'm still on a high from finally seeing Lenderman playing with his incredible band, The Wind.
For the past six months I've listened to MJ Lenderman everyday: first I re-discovered his 2022 album Boat Songs and his live album from 2023 and then the much lauded Manning Fireworks was released to the world in September and that took over in my Lenderman obsession. I was fortunate to see him do his first ever solo show, sans band, in the UK at Rough Trade back in August (and also playing guitar in his other band Wednesday). I primarily got ticket to that instore because I missed out on tickets to these two sold out shows at the Garage but I joined the wait list for tickets and hoped, and fortunately for me, those hopes paid off, and this really was my most anticipated gig of the year. I honestly haven't felt this excited by an artist for a long, long time, which is probably why I turned up so early! But at least I was rewarded by my efforts with a place at the front.

The support band tonight, Hollow Hand, is really the musical project of a Brighton-based singer-songwriter called Max Kinghorn-Mills, but I have to say they were supremely tight as a group and had a lot of chemistry. I admit, I was unfamiliar with Kinghorn-Mills' music but was pleasantly surprised. 

The first number was loud and punky and full of energy, and then they moved into a more Wilco-esque mix of country, folk and math rock, which was more than okay with me. Near the end Kinghorn-Mills asked if there were any Michael Hurley fans in the audience, to which there were a few cheers, and so we were treated with a rather lovely cover of The Portland Water. The final track saw some great instrumental riffing and nice interplay between the lead guitarist and Kinghorn-Mills. 

They've been touring with Lenderman on his European tour and definitely felt like a good fit and left me keen to investigate some more.

Last time I saw Lenderman he was playing guitar with Wednesday and essentially leaving the spotlight to singer (and former paramour) Karly Hartzman, and seemed comfortable keeping to the shadows and concentrating on his solos. But tonight, here he is centre-stage with a big five-piece band accompanying him (including lap-steel player Xandy Chelmis also of Wednesday). 

Looking laid-back in a white tee and those tousled Dylan-esque curls, he still embodies that classic slacker vibe that reminds me so much of the bands I loved so much in the 90s (even though he was barely born then!). He definitely is following on from the likes of Jason Molina, Will Oldham, J Mascis and even Pavement: I can hear them all in his music, but he's still somehow uniquely him, I mean who else could make basketball tales and stories of friends buying boats, still have that sob of melancholy and longing.

Beginning the show on a lowkey note, with the opening eponymous track of the new album, it was almost lulling us into a comfortable feeling of security before bringing out the double poppy punch of Joker Lips and Wristwatch (which has been enjoying lots of airplay on the radio of late). I thought for a sec he was going to play the new album through, and he did in fact play all nine tracks from it, but after the first three songs, veered off the tracklist, and, went back and forth through his back catalogue.

I was hoping for some songs from Boat Songs, and the first we got was the beautifully plaintive TLC Cage Match (the title truly doesn't convey just how moving this

song is!), which contains the incredible lyric "I always believed it everytime you said, we're gonna be like our heroes one day, well baby all our heroes now our dead, because all things go." What a treat to hear it live.

The sole song from Ghost Of Your Guitar Solo was a electrified version of the slightly ominous-sounding Catholic Priest, now completely countrified to magnificent effect. But there was more to love from Boat Songs (yay!), firstly You Have Bought Yourself A Boat, which had people singing along and Hangover Game, his ode to Michael Jordan's infamous poorly performance at the 1997's NBA finals that might have been the flu, but also may have been down to partying too much the night before. I had no clue about any of this before hearing Lenderman sing about it but the song itself is glorious.

He introduces the next song, "as we've missed Halloween, here's a song for Christmas" and gives us the joyous Rudolph, which even has his Jim Martin-lookalike guitarist, mouthing the legendary lines "deleted scene of Lightning McQueen, blacked out at full speed." His guitarist is superb, by the way, adding loads of energy to the stage but Lenderman himself is a fantastic guitarist too, with definitely a huge Mascis and Neil Young influence to his playing. The interplay between the two gave me huge Crazy Horse-inspired thrills.

We also got a new song called Pianos, which is on the Bandcamp album Cardinals At The Window,  a compilation raising funds for those affected by Hurricane Helene, which caused devastation in Lenderman's home town of Asheville in North Carolina. This epic track which ended again with a fantastic guitar duel reminded me of Neil Young's long guitar-fuelled live performances, which have always left me spellbound. It was absolutely incredible.

This went immediately into the punky joy of SUV, which was way more feedback-filled and even more fun than on record. Bark At The Moon, the closing track of the new record, ends with minutes of feedbacking guitar noise and I wondered if they would do the same tonight and for a while, they were making lots of crazy noises on their guitars giving true Arc-Weld vibes and I thought they may well end of this fantastic noise-fest, but thankfully there was more to come including a rarer track, No Mercy from the Knockin EP and an absolutely incredible version of She's Leaving You, surely the highlight of the new record (and almost the night!).

Earlier in the show some bloke in the audience began singing the opening line of Knockin' (Saw John Daly singing Knocking On Heaven's Door...") to which Lenderman just smiled and shook his head. It turns out he was saving it to last and the response was a lot of singing and people punching the air (some dudes are truly cheesy!).

The band absolutely saved the best for last though. "There’s so much fucked up shit going on in the world," he told us, "The election results just came through and a Canadian friend sent me this song... you guys probably need it too." He was right because it was a gorgeous version of Neil Young's Lotta Love that of course left me so thrilled. So many reminders of Neil at this concert and that is never a bad thing!

I was praying that he wouldn't leave us without playing my favourite ever MJ Lenderman song, Tastes Just Like It Costs, and I got my wish and it was beautiful. I honestly felt tearful hearing him sing it and the band going crazy at the end. What a beautiful thing to witness and what an incredible band this is and most of all what an essential artist MJ Lenderman is! I'm so thankful I got to see him tonight.