Four days before MJ Lenderman stopped in Toronto to promote his new album, Manning Fireworks, the Asheville, NC musician announced he would be back in just seven months, albeit in a venue three times the size of Lee’s Palace. Which is a long way of saying MJ Lenderman: so hot right now.
It was to Ryan Davis’s credit that the former State Champion frontman managed to seize the moment and get the sold-out crowd on board with his Roadhouse band. The five-member group worked through countrified cosmic slacker jams from their debut, Dancing on the Edge, with Davis obscuring his face behind shades, under a ball cap while wearing his hood up for the entirety of their set.
Perhaps the get-up was an extension of the irreverent streak that starts at the singer-guitarist’s lyrics —”You got a new tattoo of an old tattoo” kicks off the record — that extended to Davis miming guitar solos where actual guitar solos should have been. But that couldn’t obscure their chops, like a local bar band doing Harmonia covers, complete with pedal steel guitar.
Where Davis was irreverent, Lenderman was, for much of his hour and forty-five minute set, inscrutable. Sporting a Roadhouse Band tee and even borrowing his opener’s multi-instrumentalist, Lenderman and his backing band, the Wind, pulled songs from across his surprisingly deep catalogue.
“Wristwatch” kicked the night off and led a particularly energetic streak of songs that included “SUV and “She’s Leaving You.” His normally unresponsive face scrunching up into what looked like a sneer when singing into the mic and they were almost half-a-dozen songs in before the singer suggested he was having a good time “I can tell this is going to be fun,” he said when he finally addressed the crowd.
Working at his own pace, Lenderman appeared to be making up the setlist as he went along. The Wind showed no trouble adapting and its members proved far more emotive on stage than their frontman. Still, there was joy in Lenderman’s playing, the sort of energy musicians give-off when they’re really cooking and the crowd is right there with them.
He finally did break when discussing the recent hurricane that ravaged his home state. New song “Pianos,” which they played after passing a bottle around on stage, is part of a benefit compilation for victims. “We’re dealing with a really bad hurricane over there.”
It was only late in the set that Lenderman finally seemed to loosen up with the audience. “Hangover Game” a highlight from 2022’s Boat Songs felt a bit flat, but “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In” and finally “Knockin'” picked up the slack. They returned for a three-song encore, including an impromptu version of “Tastes Just Like it Costs” before the Roadhouse Band returned to the stage to rip through Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” with Ryan Davis taking lead vocals.
Maybe Lenderman is still adjusting to being a frontman and indie fame. Maybe he still felt rough from what was, apparently, a wild night in Detroit where the pedal steel fell off the stage. Or maybe he’s just a naturally shy person. Whatever the case, Lenderman showed that he and his band are more than capable of keeping pace with his ever-rising profile and the expectations that come with that.
