MJ Lenderman Backs up the Buzz at Tipitina's

MJ Lenderman at Tipitina’s, by Victoria Conway

The acclaimed Asheville, NC artist’s Americana-adjacent sound provided the jumping off point for a rowdy birthday show in New Orleans.

You’d never know guitars are supposedly passé based on the sold out crowd for MJ Lenderman when he celebrated his 26th birthday at Tipitina’s earlier this month. The show came at a moment when the buzz that accompanied 2022’s Boat Songs and last year’s Manning Fireworks can be seen breaking through. Manning Fireworks was one of the consensus records of the year on 2024 albums of the year lists, having made lists at Brooklyn Vegan, The New Yorker, Stereogum, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Uproxx, Vulture, The Ringer, and more. The New York Times’ Lindsay Zoladz picked Manning Fireworks as her top album of 2024 and wrote:

“I wouldn’t be in the seminary if I could be with you,” he howls atop jangly, bittersweet chords on “Rudolph,” a single from the new album which you’ll hear on today’s playlist. I love that lyric because it showcases one of Lenderman’s songwriting superpowers, his sense of concision. There’s basically an entire tragicomic short story in those 12 simple words.

I hear that, and the reference point I’ve returned to when processing Lenderman is Neil Young circa On the Beach, where the tracks sound so offhanded that they invite you to dismiss them as halfassed. But the sly accuracy in his observations and moments of effortless poetry keep you coming back. Lenderman, like Young at that moment, doesn’t sound like he’s trying to sell you a thing with unfussy melodies, and that borderline slack approach means nothing sounds showy or clever. The lines and songs simply land, and you get him.

Jon Samuels, MJ Lenderman, and Landon George onstage at Tipitina’s, by Victoria Conway

At Tipitina’s, Lenderman signaled that people shouldn’t get too comfortable by walking onstage with his band to Lil Wayne’s “I Am Not a Human Being,” then did exactly what much of the audience hoped for by front-loading the show with favorites from Manning Fireworks. He opened with the album’s first four songs and let them do the work, making no extra effort to help put them over because they didn’t need it. Those songs got love in the room from the first notes and people sang the phrases they remembered throughout that stretch.

The show changed gears with “Pianos,” a track from the North Carolina flood relief album Cardinals at the Window. Up to that point, guitarist Jon Samuels had taken all the breaks, but Lenderman took this solo and unfolded it beautifully, stretching it out to a jam-adjacent length and making it pay off with a logical, lyrical expansion of a simple musical thought.

That kicked the show into another gear, one where things got a little more rowdy. The guitars gained some fuzz and stomp at points, and his lead guitar became more prominent. He would eventually play all of Manning Fireworks and a lot of Boat Songs, and while the energetic treatment kept the show from settling into a semi-precious Americana stasis—a friend hears Whiskeytown and I get it—it also started to wear a little around the hour and a half mark, when Lenderman’s casual way with a melody made them start to seem like places we’d been before. The songs started to feel a little shaggy, but not enough to make you doubt the acclaim and evidence of the first 45 minutes.

Still, Lenderman showed a charming level of nerve, ending with “Bark at the Moon” and its homespun lope and lonesome pedal steel. The song, like much of the album, marks Lenderman as a music fan, in this case by referencing an Ozzy Osbourne song. But it didn’t seem like a natural closer even though that’s where it sits on Manning Fireworks, but it unquestionably brought the show to a clear end by stretching out into a lengthy, feedback-heavy drone that pulled the plug on the good times. The droning jam ended the song on the record too, but seven or eight minutes of collective sonic haze still seemed unlikely somehow, particularly after the song-oriented pieces he played before it. The feedback drone felt like a detour, but one the crowd couldn’t quite walk away from, though a number tried. Lenderman’s crowd was clearly ready to go wherever he wanted, including a static sonic void.

A sign of things to come, by Victoria Conway

They were rewarded for their patience with a special birthday show encore. After an obligatory singing of “Happy Birthday,” Lenderman brought his friend Thomas Dollbaum to the stage to sing Lucinda Williams’ “Drunken Angel” and DeeDee from Hattiesburg’s DeeDee Catpiss and the Fuzz Coffins to sing The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” DeeDee sang as if he were fronting a hardcore band and Lenderman did his part to oblige, more through relentlessness than power. Still, it made the case for “I Wanna Be Your Dog” as a true rock ’n’ roll classic that can win over almost any audience.

After that, the regular closer “Knockin’” lurched even more than usual. On record it’s Lenderman at his most Neil Young-like, even though the lyric references Dylan as you’d suspect from the title. But the semi-directed birthday energy led Samuels to crash into his amp, knock off the head, and spend a verse trying to get things back together while Lenderman took the final solo.

The show rambled a little, but it also confirmed that the buzz around Lenderman is earned. A lot of people clearly heard their lives in his lyrics, but he made the show more than a series of sing-along moments. It covered a fair amount of musical ground and genuinely grew in energy. The birthday mayhem gave the night a particular kind of ragged energy, but the rock ’n’ roll guitar player is as much a part of who he is as smart guy writing the songs.