This is a recap of the Jon Brion show from August 30, 2019 at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles, CA.
The show was opened by “the First Family of Largo,” Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins, who were there trying out a fresh batch of songs. Or as Sara put it, “We’re going to be playing some songs we don’t know very well.” Sara took the lead vocal on every song they performed that had lyrics, as well as playing the fiddle, with Sean providing backing vocals and guitar. Recently written tunes make it difficult to reveal the set list, but here’s what I picked up:
- “Just Another Reason to Get Away” — I made up that title, but it is a refrain that gets sung multiple times, so that’s what I’m calling it. Sara and Sean may have other ideas. The opening verse speaks of throwing someone a life line to “stop you from drowning, keep you afloat.”
- “Accidentally Like a Martyr” — this was a cover of a Warren Zevon song from his album Excitable Boy, that they had performed in the past for a Zevon tribute.
- While they were preparing for the next song, flipping through their notes, Sara apologized to the audience, “Sorry for delaying the Jon Brion-ness that’s coming your way.” I’m gonna call this song, “The Truth Will Be Waiting.”
- The next number was introduced as a bluegrass tune that Sara wrote. This song felt like an old house sat on a dusty piece of land, with chickens scratching in the yard. As it was an instrumental, and therefore had no lyrics to indicate a name, and neither Sara or Sean offered one, I’m dubbing it, “Biding Time on the Old Homestead.”
- They then performed a song written by their friend Courtney Hartman called “Neighborhood Name.” The song comes from her album with Taylor Ashton, Been On Your Side.
- Sara and Sean then played a song they had also performed at the previous Watkins Family Hour. This was the song with the lines, “I’ve been praying for a breakthrough” and “I avoided the cure but it found me anyway.” Kind of wish this one would be titled “Praying for a Breakthrough,” you know, if Sara and Sean needed any suggestions.
- The “First Family” finished their set with a song they wrote based on a traditional tune called “Polly Put the Kettle On,” though this song has rich lyrics such as, “All the pain we left behind is greater than the miles of desert sand.” When they finished, Sean welcomed Jon to the stage.
As usual, Jon immediately headed to the piano, saying “I’m gonna plant myself over here for awhile.” Awhile turned out to be for the entire show. He also made a quick remark about the Watkins, “All that internal harmony! Crikey!”
He began with piano improvisation, working his way into the instrument. That night the music had a sweet and melancholy feel to it and in a few minutes it morphed into a song that fit the same mood, though it grabs hold of that aura and soars — Cole Porter’s “So in Love.” Oh, how I love that song. When I was a teen my friend had made a tape for me of the second disc of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, mainly, because I was wild about the song “Don’t Fence Me In,” which is also on the album. Being a hopeless romantic, I soon swooned for “So in Love” and eventually even sang it for my musical theatre class in university. Reminiscing aside, Jon did his typical thing of playing it fairly straightforward first and then embellishing it and becoming more lively and jazzed up the second time through.
He followed that with an Ellington song that sounded so familiar. Gosh, I need to listen to more Ellington AND LOOK AT THE SONG TITLES. Possibly was “Solitude,” but just a few days later and I can’t remember the music of it to confirm. In my defense, I was also extremely tired on Friday night, to the point that I spent a half hour napping on the back seat of my car before the show. I never felt like I woke up properly and the notes I took during this show were pretty sparse. I blame it on my kids’ first full week of school! Anyway, after finishing those two numbers Jon mentioned they were by Porter and Ellington. “Both good, you should check them out. Pitchfork is raving about one of them.”
Jon called out to the audience for requests and immediately latched on to “Knock Yourself Out,” from I Heart Huckabees, though he played it sans harmonica.
Then he was flipping through the selections on the beat box and as he found different rhythms he would play snippets on the piano. “I’ll just keep doing a medley of things the beats remind me of.” He came across a rhythm he liked and let it play, saying, “Slick. Moody. I’m in.” Then mysteriously, “We’re going to play video I Ching.” He placed an opera singer on each of the screens behind him, starting and stopping their voices as he worked them into the musical collage. He very briefly played part of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ’bout a Thing.” Using the microKorg for the bass notes of the song and playing the melody on the piano, eventually he settled on the song “She’s Not There” by The Zombies. Both of those tunes we heard parts of during the June show. Toward the end, he put a strange video on the screen I haven’t seen before, of a guy dancing with matchsticks on a wooden box that has “The Oldsmobile Show” printed on it. That man was creating a rhythm with his routine and was transfixing by itself, never mind the atmosphere Jon had created to surround it.
Time for another old original; synth sounds began, the elderly guitar player was put on the screen, and Jon played and sang, “Strings That Tie to You” from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This was followed by another request, this time for Jon’s song “Ruin My Day” from his album Meaningless.
Trying to find something the audience could singalong to, Jon pondered, “What unites you?” He rejected some requests (and the requests did not flow in their usual torrential downpour as the auditorium was only half). Then stating, “When democracy doesn’t work, autocracy kicks in.” He decided to play Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” including a quiet bit on the mini celesta, where he felt like he was conducting the dynamics of the audience.
As that song was finishing for some reason my mind flashed to when Jon had played “Moon River” in the Little Room a few years back. It’s one of my favorite songs to play on piano and I thought, “I could use that song right now.”
Jon was dabbling through some music on piano, as he does, and worked in a bit of the Wicked Witch of the West motif from The Wizard of Oz. Perhaps I should title this part, “Biding Time on the Old Starck Piano?” Then very slowly he began laying down the notes for “Moon River.” My heart skipped, my stomach flip flopped, and my mind screamed, “How does he do that?” I don’t even have to make requests, the man just knows! Hello synchronicity? This was another study in performing unhurriedly first, then stepping it up to a jazzier pace, with greater ornamentation, and done exclusively as an instrumental.
Next, he was brushing brusquely across the strings inside the piano and the few sounds he made sounded like he might be preparing to play “Same Things.” There was a lot of reverb and the creation of tension, but it instead turned into the Jaws Theme and then into The Pink Panther theme. Finally, he settled on “Here We Go” from Punch-Drunk Love. Every line of this song is so well written, that I’ve decided to use one for the title of this post. Been feeling like I’ve been on a different planet myself lately.
Then he announced he would play “Something of someone else’s from 90 years ago,” as he commenced playing the classic piano piece, “Alligator Crawl.”
Jon then asked for requests to close the show. He decided to perform “The Beach Boys are Back in Town,” which was a rendition of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town” played with the multi-part harmonies of The Beach Boys, using the technology of the microKorg to create the voicing. That was a fun one to watch and I love to see his creativity at work when he does things like this.
It was a short, short set from Jon and he played a lot of familiar material. Also, it was surprising to see so many guitars in the rack, yet he never picked one up or even looked like he might. I worry about how he is recovering from the concussion he got a few months ago and if it is continuing to affect his ability to perform or create. I haven’t seen him stretching himself the way he has done in the past since that happened. All of his shows since that time have ended before midnight, when he used to end at midnight or later. As much as he likes to thank the audience for attending, I want to say that I am so grateful to have been able to see so many of his shows over the last few years and feel lucky to have been able to witness so many flashes of genius up close. I hope Jon finds the rest (or whatever) he needs and the inspiration to continue to create music that is unexpected, filled with wonder, and wraps its arms around the listener and whispers, “I understand.”