REVIEW: MJ Lenderman & The Wind | 1.25.25 @ Brooklyn Bowl Nashville [PHOTOS]

MJ Lenderman & The Wind
w/ Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band
Brooklyn Bowl; Nashville, TN
January 25, 2025

Review and photos by Drake Boling

I hear them calling out in the streets. “Please, we are begging you. Please be normal about MJ Lenderman,” they cry out. 

“No,” I whisper back. “I can’t.”

At their recent stop at Brooklyn Bowl, MJ Lenderman & the Wind blew into Nashville and deftly deployed their signature brand of alt-country rock under a half-mast McDonald’s flag.

Anticipation was in the air, considering this show was supposed to occur back in November! It had to be rescheduled due to devastating hurricanes hitting the band’s hometown of Asheville, NC shortly after the release of MJ’s 4th LP, Manning Fireworks.

To this gentle reporter’s ear, Manning Fireworks has moved MJ Lenderman out of the “indie darling” class, and placed him firmly upon the Mount Rushmore of “Hell Yeah,” nestled somewhere in between oh, I don’t know, Chris Walken, Jimi Hendrix, and uhh, The Rizzler. 

Needless to say, Brooklyn Bowl was absolutely packed, as the show sold out immediately, even after previously being planned for the considerably smaller Basement East. The crowd was as eager as you would expect, considering they had that much more time to appreciate and get familiar with his new album.

That very album’s titular opening track kicked off the show on a gentle note. Jake’s (that’s Mr. MJ Lenderman’s to you) warbly voice told a tale of lost innocence along the proverbial path from perfect little baby to jerk. For a song that was only released a couple months ago, the lyrics seem to have been branded into my brain to the point of having always believed they were there. This is a strong through-line that runs throughout his oeuvre, giving his music a timeless, instantly nostalgic quality.

I was still in the photo pit for one of my favorite songs of 2024, “Joker Lips.” Stage left, certified cool-name-haver and multi-instrumentalist and backup vocalist Xandy Chelmis swapped back and forth between violin, tambourine, and, of course God’s favorite instrument, the pedal steel. His pedal riff in this song felt like sunshine on my face.

Next up was fan-favorite “Wristwatch,” which saw the crowd enthusiastically singing every word. The absolutely glistening solo at the end totally ripped. Soon after was the Boat Songs one-two punch of “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat” and “TLC Cagematch,” the latter of which made me want to shed a tear and then wrestle my brother. 

Stage right was Jon Samuels on guitar, the perfect foil to Jake’s lumbering grace. Strutting about the stage, frizzy hair flinging around, his theatrical and buoyant energy contrasted with Lenderman’s relaxed presence. This made for a really cool balance when they traded slashing riffs against each other. At one point, Jon’s guitar strap must have exploded due to shredding too hard, and he had to finish the song with his elbow supporting the axe.

Jake introduced “kinda new song” “Pianos,” from Cardinals at the Window, a sprawling compilation of new tracks released to help raise funds for Asheville after the hurricanes. The album is basically a who’s-who of modern indie and alternative music available on Bandcamp. I’ve been listening since fall and still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I’ve discovered some real cool newish artists just shuffling through. And it’s for a good cause.

“I’ve been walking down that street / Where pianos used to fall on me.”  The jangly riff grew against a very chill backdrop, until restraint let loose, crescendoing into a blaze of wah and whammy. The song takes its time, but once the end kicked in, it became the closest to a capital-J-jam of the evening.

“Rudolph” was another hit that made the audience celebrate their inner ‘jerk who flirts with the clergy nurse till it burns’ (so relatable). “Inappropriate,” a scrappy older cut from Ghost of Your Guitar Solo depicted a Freudian tableaux. The band then brought down the BPM a bit with “Toontown,” an emotional ride with a typical Lendermanian protagonist: a rodeo clown with his pants pulled down. Soon after was lead single “She’s Leaving You.” The crowd really lit up for this song, as everybody and their mother sang that huge, universal chorus: “It falls apart / we’ve all got work to do.” A small mosh of young lads jumping up and down emerged during the outro and provided the crowd with some much-needed movement before everyone settled back down.

A lil’ paper-ripping gesture from Mr. MJ indicated we were about to be treated to “Rip Torn,” one of the most touching, understated tributes to Patches O’Houlihan I’ve ever heard.  Before the song, bassist and dedicated tour-vlogger Landon George shouted out his uncle in the audience. He explained that his uncle is some sort of tax man, and he always thought of his uncle as a Man in Black. Xandy switched over to the violin to saw back and forth a very sweet southern melody, and perhaps due to how quiet the song is, the piano seemed more audible on this than on other songs. I’d be remiss if I didn’t pause for one of the most profound couplets:

“There’s men and then there’s movies /
There’s men and Men in Black / 
You say ‘there’s milkshakes and there’s smoothies’ /
You always lose me when you talk like that”

In general, Jake expresses little interest in commanding the stage as frontman nor rock star. Maybe it’s from his role as guitarist in Wednesday or just his unbothered demeanor, but he doesn’t talk a bunch in between songs, isn’t trying to hype the audience up, nor emoting much throughout the set other than the occasional scrunching up his face or hitting a particularly filthy riff. Rather, he lets the songs do the talking and his bandmates do the emoting, which makes for a cool dynamic.

“You Don’t Know The Shape I’m In” was the band at their tightest of the evening–the gentle thrum of the drum machine and double bass on the record was transformed into a more rock n roll setting. Although I held out hope that Squidward might show up and have his clarinet ‘singing its lonesome duck-walk,’ sadly no such squid emerged.

At some point, MJ put on a capo and declared: ”You know what that means…” as Landon played the bass riff of “Schism” by Tool, which, for the Venn Diagram overlap of people who love alt-Americana and prog metal, would have paid good money to see them cover the rest of. Myself included.

That lacerating lead riff cut through the mix like butter on “You Are Every Girl To Me,” one of the greatest love songs I’ve ever heard. This one was super loose, bordering on sloppy, in a way that emphasized just how impressive it is when they are not playing so lackadaisical. It’s a welcome reminder because the entire band is so effortless it’s easy to forget how hard it is to play that well. 

Lots of bands have amazing chemistry, but this shit is like alchemy in how fluidly they perform.  “On My Knees” took this even further, seeing the lads at their live-est and loose-est, surrendering to forces beyond their control: “Wherever you find me / You’ll find me on my knees.”

“If you got a capo on right now, take that shit off!”

The band locked back in for a very tight “Bark at the Moon,” the closer of Manning Fireworks, in its ~10 minute entirety. This bluesy origin story celebrating simple pleasures of staying up too late playing Guitar Hero was, of course, dedicated to “uncle Ozzy.” The way I would describe this song is basically that it’s just a celebration of guitar and what a guitar can do. On this particular night, both Jake and Jon’s guitars were considerably less dirty than on the record, but nevertheless the tone was so good it brought a tear to my ear. Like the platonic ideal of guitar-ness. To be honest, if an alien asked me what a guitar is supposed to sound like, I might have to whip out this bad boy. The song closed with a long instrumental outro, a sort of purifying ocean of feedback complete with a sax, chimes and a gong, supplied by members of Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, who had kicked things off earlier in the evening. The band hit the body of their guitars and just let them ring out, exhibiting sparkling hums feeding back into themselves. I would describe it like one fuzzed out instant expanded, allowing you to hear the intricacies within the soundscape.

On the other side of this ocean was a relatively deep cut, “No Mercy,” a heartbreaking journey of a breakup and betrayal. I think the song is about the transformative power of grief and the way you have to change yourself to defend yourself after someone exits your life, or something like that. By the last verse, the Brooklyn Bowl was silent, hanging on each word: “If we meet again / in the next land / I will be your enemy … / I will give you my pain.” The kind of shit you say while wielding a huge sword. This worked powerfully as a late-set emotional centerpoint and held a lot of gravity.

“Knockin’” closed out the group’s main set, and, again, by the end of the song the band had worked up into a frenzy. Interpolating a song as classic as “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and being able to add something as new and cathartic as the last couple minutes is a remarkable feat.

After a hard-fought encore, Xandy and Landon took center stage to scream a much-needed  “How we doing Nashville!?,” which energized the crowd. Eventually Jake lumbered back onstage and announced it would be a three-song encore, a touch I always really appreciate, just so the audience isn’t constantly worried that the song they’re hearing will be the last.

Taking a moment to address the seemingly nonstop river of bullshit and headlines dominating the news for the past couple weeks, Jake said a friend had convinced him to cover Neil Young’s “Lotta Love.” This, of course, was a hit, and provided a great late-set sing-along moment to a crowd that agreed that we’re gonna need a lot of love indeed. “SUV” was next, an interesting image frozen in time that saw Lenderman at his most fuzzed-out and punk rock. This brought us to the final song of the evening, “Hangover Game”–one that showcases his trademark skill in songwriting specificity.  In it, he reinterprets Michael Jordan’s infamous “flu game,” suggesting that he was probably just hungover. Even with several days of dry January left, I couldn’t deny admitting “yeah, I love drinking too,” to close out a night of life-affirming all-American rock n roll.

When I think about it, I haven’t spun a record as much as Manning Fireworks in a while. I will humbly admit I got an early preview of the album at a time that was pretty serendipitous. Here was this insane moment where I was able to listen to my most anticipated album, before it was heard by the masses. It was like this secret shimmering crystal that only I could look at and listen to. I knew it was going to be special even just from the first couple strums that reminded me of the King of the Hill theme song. It got me thinking about that instant nostalgia, the sense of “how have I lived without this song expressing some very specific moment or aspect of life?”

By the time the album actually came out in September, I had already had months’ worth of memories and connotations and experiences attached to these nine songs. And I’m starting to think that collecting these memories is what actually matters in the long run. These songs had thoroughly permeated my life to the point where I still formed this personal relationship with the music like it was written just for me, describing scenes from my life and angst in its most mundane form. 

A lot of people are writing about MJ Lenderman, sharing memes, and a lot of discourse has been discoursed on the “dudes rock” phenomena he seems to elicit out of young men. I don’t view this as restrictive, it’s just appealing to something about masculinity that a lot of young men relate to. In his songwriting, moments of vulnerability are covered up by layers of distance, character work, pop culture references. Which is real.

Much ink has been spilled over the comedy he adds into his lyrics, and how evocative his short sketches can be. In general, Lenderman’s approach to talking about references reflects me and my friends’ relationship to pop culture more than 99% of artists right now. It’s like, I basically think in Simpsons quotes. Guitar Hero fundamentally changed the way I thought about guitar. Sometimes you eat too much at the fair. Seeing Jack Nicholson enjoying a huge sandwich courtside at a basketball game physically causes me to involuntarily say “Hell Yeah.” I couldn’t stop myself if I tried. The guy just nails the realistic slice-of-life, how lived-in the scenes he paints are. And why aren’t there more songs about how Jackass is funny? 

There’s a tweet that says something along the lines of “showing a man MJ Lenderman is like dangling keys in front of a baby.” Come out to a show to see how effortlessly he can have everyone in a room wrapped around his finger, how significant his lyrics can make the mundane feel, and just how good a guitar can sound,  and you might just feel like a baby seeing something shiny for the first time.

Also if anyone is reading this that is able to MJ in touch with Dolly, I think the two collaborating could significantly heal the world please

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Setlist:

Manning Fireworks
Joker Lips
Wristwatch
You Have Bought Yourself a Boat
TLC Cage Match
Pianos
Rudolph
Inappropriate
Toontown
She’s Leaving You
Rip Torn
You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In
You Are Every Girl to Me
On My Knees
Bark at the Moon
No Mercy
Knockin’

Lotta Love (Neil Young)
SUV
Hangover Game