Concert Review: Father John Misty at Cat's Cradle

It seems like there are few musical acts around now who have built as much buzz as Father John Misty (and here’s the apparently still-obligatory “better known as J. Tillman, former drummer of Fleet Foxes, et cetera et cetera”). It’s not unwarranted — Tillman has seemed to cultivate and relish his role as a weirdo, and audiences and press alike have gleefully eaten it up.

I’ve been fortunate enough to catch Tillman on every tour date he’s booked in the Triangle — all at the Cradle, and all pretty different. At his show in May, Tillman ended the set by screaming at the audience. I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying over the din of the music and the screaming audience, save for a colorful string of expletives. Friends and I left the show debating what the hell had just happened (and we weren’t the only ones).

Friday night’s show was nearly a full 180 from the previous two Misty performances — there was none of the flamboyance, no overexaggerated hip gyrations, no dramatic gestures or near-violent antagonism with the audience. On the surface, it seemed like all the fun stuff of a Father John Misty show was gone. Everything about FJM, from the Fear Fun album cover to the merchandise is, to some extent, over-the-top and weird. So how would a show go with one of its core pillars gone?

The excision of extravagance, in a way, made this the best FJM show yet, as it pushed the audience’s focus to Tillman’s songwriting rather than a hundred other goofy distractions. The crowd often laughed at some of the lines — like “lift up your wedding dress that someone was probably murdered in” — but the sharpness of all the songs landed hard in the quieter, calmer atmosphere. Tillman played a good bit of material from his first FJM record Fear Fun, but the clear highlights were the new songs.

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Like with the racy video for “Nancy From Now On,” the songs expressed familiar affectionate sentiments cloaked in provocative imagery. “Everything is doomed, and nothing will be spared, but I love you, honeybear,” went one song, while another confessional-sounding song listed all sorts of sins, with a chorus of “I’ve said awful things, such awful things, and now it’s out.”

Notably absent from the performance was the giant iPhone cutout that’s been trotted out on other shows on this tour. The audience didn’t get any kind of scolding regarding phone photography, though Tillman did take a break from the songs to pour out an entire bottle of wine out into a glass. Once the bottle was empty, he sat it back down on the stool, picked up his guitar and resumed the set with a cover of Dory Previn’s “The Lady With the Braid.”

Tillman closed the set with a request, “We Met at the Store,” which broke the trend of mostly tounge-in-cheek sass in favor of a more explicit outpouring of emotion. It wasn’t saccharine, but still sweet enough to make you think Tillman isn’t a totally cynical misanthrope after all.

Comedian Kate Berlant opened the set, introduced by Tillman as a musician. She played no songs, instead delivering a set of what seemed like the culmination of every bit of self-important pseudo-intellectual stage banter ever delivered. Anyone who’s been to more than a handful of shows knows this sort of talk all too well. Her ruminations were the perfect complement to Tillman’s songs; indeed, the aforementioned song with the line about the marching band seemed like it could be about the character Berlant had created.

It’ll be interesting to see where Tillman takes Father John Misty from here. He could put out the tunes with their current arrangement and likely do well with it, though at the same time, to what extent would it be a return to just releasing J. Tillman? Would full-band arrangements detract from the songs? We’ll just have to be patient to see what Tillman cooks up next.