Latest news with #JohnMisty
The Independent
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Father John Misty's songs about mortality come to life at Royal Albert Hall
Two songs into his encore, just about two hours into his sold-out show at London's venerated Royal Albert Hall, Father John Misty introduces his gentle 10-minute epic, 'So I'm Growing Old on Magic Mountain'. 'So,' the singer-songwriter born Joshua Tillman says, lilting his guitar strap around his bearded neck, 'here's yet another interminable meditation on ageing.' The crowd cheers. They've just lured Tillman back to the stage following a standing ovation for 'Mahashmashana', the nine-minute, blustering, saxophone-speckled title track from his sixth album of trenchant indie folk-rock, released in November. He's being characteristically wry, but another interminable meditation on ageing is precisely what they want. Tillman is at a unique point in his career. Once something of an indie rock enfant terrible, well-known for his sardonic online presence (which satirised online self-promotion and indie rock stereotypes) and his pull-quote-generating interviews, Tillman all but disappeared from social media and even the music press in 2018. He declined promotional interviews for that year's God's Favourite Customer and 2022's Chloë and the Next 20th Century. In a way, one might expect him to be on a victory lap – Tillman released a greatest hits compilation last August. Yet he's never been more potent. Mahashmashana is perhaps his finest record since his breakthrough 2015 album I Love You, Honeybear, more assured in its stark-then-stirring arrangements, its songwriting structure and strong melodies. Its wry, poignant lyricism about meaning and mortality characterise its Tillman-acknowledged 'meditations'. Pitchfork argued its songwriting 'might be the best it's ever been'; The Independent gave the 'wonderful' album four stars. Tillman certainly believes in it – his Royal Albert Hall setlist includes every one of its eight tracks – and so does the audience. Backed by a seven-piece band, Father John Misty's performance brings mammoth orchestral swells and crashing cymbals to the end of 'Josh Tillman and the Accidental Dose'. The wall-of-sound chorus of set highlight 'Screamland' crashes into Royal Albert Hall like a tidal wave. The influence of Mahashmashana' s robust arrangements is palpable in older Father John Misty songs on the night, too: 'Nancy From Now On', from his 2012 debut Fear Fun, is bolstered by charging, galloping toms from the second verse onwards, adding emphasis and drive, while a newly bombastic beginning to 'Disappointing Diamonds Are the Rarest of Them All' makes it the set's most-improved performance. It's a small shame that the show begins so timidly. Tillman, facially hirsute but stylish in a dark, slim-fitted suit, his white shirt open to his chest, doesn't speak for the first five songs of his set. It's not until he begins to warm up – making coy little hands movements during 'Being You'; commenting drily that the venue 'is certainly the most dignified place I've ever been in, and I went to the sphere in Vegas'; and, finally, going full goblin-mode as he leans into the dramatised machismo of 'Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow', boxing playfully with the front row – that the crowd does too. From here, though, it's clear sailing to the show's finale – not just on 'Mahashmashana' but a trio of majestic I Love You, Honeybear encore performances, which ends with the title track's chorus, about love in the face of an apocalyptically scary world: 'Everything is doomed, and nothing will be spared / But I love you, Honeybear.' Maybe it's always been this way, that in all of Tillman's songs, the world has always been about to end. If that's the case, well – we'll take another interminable meditation on ageing, please.
Telegraph
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Father John Misty, review: The eccentric star turns the Albert Hall into a church of rock
Part rockstar, part preacher – and totally mesmerising. How else to describe Father John Misty (or, as his evangelical parents baptised him, Joshua Tillman)? At Tuesday night's superb gig at the Royal Albert Hall, the 43-year-old bearded bard of the dispossessed hipster proved, once again, that he is the most striking talent in contemporary indie: sexy and pretentious yet self-deprecating, with a voice so effortlessly powerful that the walls of the Hall seemed to shake with every note. Backed by a terrific band – a particular shoutout goes to saxophonist Tony Barba, whose feverish playing on the opener I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All and flagship single Mahashmashana, the title track from Tillman's latest album, made the evening feel like a sort of jazz-soundtracked special congregation. Tillman shimmied across the stage, lithe and charismatic in a tailored black suit. His pointing fingers seemed to incite more of that religious fervour – an apparent invitation for his adoring subjects to submit themselves wholly to him. Following the universal acclaim for Fear Fun (2012) and I Love You, Honeybear (2015), Tillman could have rested on his laurels and established himself as the saviour of commercial indie rock. But the nihilistic old-school Americana of Pure Comedy (2017), and the big-spirited jazz and Big Band standards on 2022's epic Chloë and the Next 20th Century, hinted that he wasn't content with playing it safe. Late last year, his sixth album Mahashmashana took it further, with its long, slow songs proving challenging on first listen – but joyfully, they came alive at the RAH. Frantic, pounding percussion heralded the start of that album's standout track, She Cleans Up, as flashing orange lights bounced off the opulent red velvet curtains covering the Hall's private boxes and turned the space into the depths of Hell itself. Respite came – for both the audience and Tillman's brooding baritone, stretched to its limit by his frenzied, impassioned delivery – courtesy of Screamland, a beautiful, Leonard Cohen-worthy rumination on clawing your way out from rock bottom ('Like a sucker with a scratcher / Like a f--- up with a dream'). Tillman's varied catalogue must make choosing a setlist difficult, but the mix of older, humorous tracks and more serious new material made for an endearing victory lap – songs written when he was a 'precocious 33-year-old', he said, felt embarrassing to perform now, but it didn't stop him dropping to his knees and going full throttle for Chateau Lobby #4 ('I wanna take you in the kitchen/ Lift up your wedding dress/ Someone was probably murdered in'). The ghostly Mental Health was introduced as 'another beautiful ballad about getting gaslit by capitalism', while the closing masterpieces Holy S--- and I Love You, Honeybear tightened his grip on the already spellbound audience; you could hear a pin drop for much of the set. Tillman's 'modern life is rubbish' message is not that different from other artists': the internet is making us stupider, religion can be dangerous, and sex can indeed be weaponised. But it's how he says it – beautifully, devastatingly – that sets him apart.
