“It’s great to be back in Philadelphia. This one goes out to my Italian family.”
The combination of deadpan humor and sincere sentiment from celebrated indie singer-songwriter MJ Lenderman got a huge cheer from the sold-out Thursday night crowd at Union Transfer this week. Headlining the same venue he played twice over the past year and a half in the band Wednesday, this gig saw Lenderman stretching across the expanse of his solo catalog, particularly his 2024 outing Manning Fireworks, which got a full performance over the course of the night.
The record uses a bed of rootsy psychedelia and crunchy indie rock to score Lenderman’s witty and observational lyrics. With clever wordplay and an array of Easter egg references to the music that shaped him, he reflects on contemporary society, religion, and human emotion. On “Wristwatch,” his topic is connectivity and alienation, using the language of last century to describe something that’s commonplace in this one — “a wristwatch that’s a compass and a cell phone” — and how it leads to a result all-too-recognizable in any era — “a wristwatch that tells me you’re all alone.” Less abstract and more pointed is “Joker Smile,” where he sings “you know I love my TV / but all I really wanna see / is see you need me.”
M.J. Lenderman | photo by John Vettese for WXPN
Delivered in his plain-spoken, mellifluous deadpan, Lenderman’s lyrics were elevated by his band The Wind — Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel and fiddle, Landon George on bass, Colin Miller on drums, Jon Samuels on guitar, and keys player Trevor Nikrant. The group ebbed and flowed with him over the course of the night, rocking like Pavement on “She’s Leaving You,” crooning like Willie on the album’s title track. His back-catalog exhibited a similar range; “TLC Cagematch” from 2022’s Boat Songs was a dreamy country jangle that slid into the gnarly, trippy “SUV” from the same album.
Lenderman dug deep for the setlist: “Inappropriate” from 2021’s Ghost of Your Guitar Solo earned Philadelphia’s Dear Life Records a shoutout. “TV Dinners” tracked back to 2021’s Knockin’ and Lenderman said “I haven’t played that one for a long time, but special occasions call for special times.” The band played the expansive, dreamy “Pianos” from Cardinals At The Window, a benefit compilation to fund relief efforts in Lenderman’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene — “A lot of people are without power, without running water, people have lost their homes,” he described. A QR code for the compilation was set up at the merch table — you can learn more about it here — and he told folks another easy way to help was buying a white basketball t-shirt design from their merch table, since proceeds from that design were being donated to on-the-ground relief efforts (it ended up being a popular item at the end of the night).
To wrap the show on a ridiculously unhinged high, Lenderman brought out tourmates Ryan Davis and The Roadhouse Band (keyboardist Nikrant plays in both bands) as well as Dan Wriggins of Philadelphia’s Friendship for a Halloween season cover; everyone onstage (and many in the room) howled along with Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves Of London,” complete with lyrical tweaks to shout out Philadelphia icons from John Kruk to Meek Mill to Kurt Vile.