Nathanson's words, not mine. Happy that my city could earn that distinction. The comment stemmed from the observation that the audience was remarkably mellow. Michaelson said so too, and I guess we were, but I'm not totally sure what was expected from an all ages show on a Sunday night. I will say though, the hype surrounding Nathanson as being great with the crowd and a a lot of fun to see was true. I suppose though that the circumstances were slightly altered. Due to the fact that the concert was being broadcast live, there was to be no swearing. He was forced to give his "best PG show." After he said that, I was wondering what exactly went on during a regular show; he even called out a couple people who left after a few minutes. His shtick was engaging, entertaining, and mostly humorous. In between songs he made cracks about the radio, and random comments, like how great the E chord is. Inexplicably he read an excerpt from "You Can Run but You Can't Hide: The Life and Times of Dog the Bounty Hunter," which was hysterical in it's a) obscurity, b) absurdity, and c) delivery.
The only somewhat annoying portion of the set was when a couple who was celebrating their third anniversary, requested some song and got up right there and started slow dancing while singing into each others' faces. It was really and truly obnoxious and awkward. It's not really they kind of place where people dance and what's more-- they were blocking my view of the stage so I had no choice but to watch the luvyduvy-ness of what should had been a private moment. He opened with "To the Beat of Our Noisy Hearts" and played about 18 or 19 songs in total, switching from acoustic to electric. Major crowd-pleasers were "Come On Get Higher" and "Still" which he accompanied with an interesting metaphor...as well as "Car Crash," his single.
Unfortunately he tried on a couple of occasions to get the audience to clap along. I just wish performers would abandon that ploy altogether. He covered Journey's "Don't Stop Believing'" and hardly had to ask for participation. What is it with that song? About three quarters of the way through, the drunks showed themselves to be a small group of about four who "came all the way from Memphis to hear [Nathanson] play 'Straight to Hell,' "which is weird because I don't think that's one of his songs. In any case, as time ticked there was one song that was MIA and I kept wondering if he was going to play it at all. Finally, almost right at the end came "Detroit Waves" with a powerful extended bridge that dipped into "Paint it Black."
At 10:30 Nathanson wrapped it up with "Then I'll Be Smiling" and scooted off stage. As he passed my table someone shouted out "great job!" and in a persona much different from the one we had just seen, he shyly answered, "thanks for coming, guys."
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