The ascent of MJ Lenderman continues at a packed Franklin Music Hall

He’s got a houseboat docked at the himbo dome.

There are people for whom that will mean absolutely nothing, but for those who do, few things could matter more. Of course, if you are reading this you probably know I’m referring to a line that pops up about halfway through MJ Lenderman’s riotous crowd-pleaser “Wristwatch.” It’s but one of a dozen lines that meant with rapturous bated breath by the thousands of concertgoers packed tightly into Franklin Music Hall this past Saturday, a crowd containing hundreds of dudes who could easily stand in for the man currently rolling into another blistering solo.

The cult of MJ Lenderman is really like nothing else in music at the moment. The unassuming 26-year-old has quickly become a lanky, t-shirted icon of laid-back slacker charm. Having honed his skills as part of equally revered North Carolina country-rockers Wednesday, Lenderman’s run of low-profile Bandcamp releases reached a larger audience back in 2022 with Boat Songs, an endearingly off-kilter collection of song-length non-sequiturs and tightly-wound guitar riffs that charmed the pants off pretty much everyone. The endurance of this record became obvious as Lenderman ripped into some of the LP’s standout tracks; the metaphor-laden professional wrestling ballad “TLC Cage Match,” the playful and tumbling fuzzed-out rocker “You Are Every Girl To Me,” the epic cultural revisionism of “Hangover Game,” each as singular and beloved as the next.

Then came 2024, a year which saw Lenderman reach heights even the biggest Boat Songs stan could barely envision. Not only did he follow it up with the indelible Manning Fireworks – a pitch-perfect extension of what he was doing on Boat Songs without losing the grimy, underdog shine – but he was a featured, and essential part, of XPN-favorite Waxahatchee’s incredible record Tigers Blood, most notably singing backing vocals on standout single “Right Back To It.”  (Both albums, by the way, were voted onto our Best of 2024 MEGA-LIST by WXPN’s on-air staff.) It’s the kind of precipitous rise that leads you from playing Johnny Brenda’s as recently as 2023 to headlining a near sold-out Franklin Music Hall stage just a few years later.

That energy was all over his set Saturday night, which opened with a pair of Manning Fireworks tracks, beginning with one of the record’s best singles, the downtrodden bit of country rock storytelling “Joker Lips.” This was followed quickly by “On My Knees,” a deeper Fireworks cut that properly introduced the raucous audience to the Crazy Horse level of sonic comederie Lenderman has built with his backing band The Wind, which includes Jon Samuels on guitar (also a member of Philadelphia’s Friendship), Colin Miller on drums, Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel guitar, and Ethan Baechtold on bass guitar. The momentum continued throughout the set, culminating in main-set ender, “Knockin’,” the best song to name drop famed, larger-than-life golfer John Daly and an impassioned, unapologetic ode to the healing power of playing classic rock really effin loud.

Then came the encore, which began with Lenderman dutifully shouting out the excellent set from opening band This Is Lorelei, who played a collection of songs highlighting their excellent 2024 album Box for Buddy, Box for Star. Though they are a much different band in style than Lenderman and company, songwriter Nate Amos is very much an off-kilter pop maestro in his own right. This was only further confirmed by witnessing Lenderman open the encore with Amos’ “Dancing In The Club,” which took the spacey, autotuned keyboard pop of the original and turned into a sun-baked ballad à la The Band.

Lenderman then took a moment to introduce the true finale, one which would feature on of his “favorite songwriters,” and mine, Philly’s own Dan Wriggins, also of the band Friendship.For a guy who talked to Wriggins a few times for this very site, this was a big deal. I can’t say, for sure, whether that sentiment extended to the majority of the Saturday night crowd, but few were concerned with specifics once Wriggins, Lenderman and company exploded into a guttural, swaggering rendition of  Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness On the Edge of Town.” It was an appropriate, if unsurprising, way for Lenderman and his band to send the packed house into the Philadelphia night; an iconic blue-collar poet covered by one whose legend only continues to grow.