MJ Lenderman Sydney Opera House review — dudes rock
North Carolina’s slacker saint, who put out one of the finest albums of last year, played the biggest show of his career on Tuesday.
MJ Lenderman isn’t famous — not in any way that counts in the real world. But in the internet’s music-obsessed corners, he’s a minor deity — the kind of artist who gets breathlessly dissected on the Reddit community r/indieheads.
Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, the 26-year-old writes like he’s seen it all and is still deciding whether it’s funny or just plain sad. A nimble songwriter with a bitter wit, who feels like Gen Z’s answer to the late, great David Berman or Bill Callahan, but with an easygoing goofiness (“I could really use your two cents, babe/I could really use the change”). His gorgeously alive songs capture the banalities and weirdness of small-town existence, peopled with losers, yearners, and men who just can’t catch a break.
Six years, four solo records, and a residency as guitarist for the excellent Southern rock band Wednesday — Lenderman has been quietly grafting his way to slacker rock sainthood. 2022’s Boat Songs put his name on the door, but last year’s Manning Fireworks — which topped year-end lists (including The Australian’s) — kicked it clean off the hinges, so much so that he’s now rubbing elbows with Jimmy Fallon on late-night TV. At the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday night, he played the biggest headline show of his career.
By rights, this shouldn’t have worked. The Concert Hall is built for reverence, for hushed appreciation and polite sit-downs. And yet here’s Lenderman, gangly and dressed in a tatty King Gizzard T-shirt, kicking off with a shrug: “Can’t believe they let us in here.”
The crowd — equal parts supercool young kids and Wilco dads with thinning hair — is hesitant at first. There’s a quiet crisis unfolding in the seats. To stand or not to stand? Nobody wants to be the first. Lenderman, possibly sensing the dread of a seated rock audience, gives permission. Up they go. Order restored.
It’s a pity we didn’t get there before ‘Wristwatch’, the closest thing to a hit from Manning Fireworks and Lenderman’s cheeky jab at the Andrew Tate-style alpha-male grift economy — the kind of guys who pay for a blueprint on how to be a man. It also boasts one of the most shoutable lyrics in his catalogue: “And I’ve got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome / And a wristwatch that’s a pocket knife and a megaphone.”
His band, The Wind, are a miracle of sloppiness and precision. Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel, Ethan Baechtold on bass, Colin Miller on drums, Jon Samuels on lead guitar and Landon George on bass. — all of them playing like they might forget the next chord and then landing it with surgical accuracy. It’s rock music with a half-cut swagger — a lurch and a sway, but never a stumble.
They keep cruising at the same laid-back altitude all night, until ‘Pianos’ drops in — a track from a 136-song compilation for North Carolina flood victims. Lenderman lets it hang, gives it some room to breathe, then slams it back into gear with a cover of This Is Lorelei’s ‘Dancing in the Club,’ which was released today. There’s also a muttered dig at the Trump administration, that sets up a cover of Neil Young’s ‘Lotta Love.’
The night peaks with ‘Bark at the Moon,’ the ten-minute, fuzz-drenched farewell from Manning Fireworks. “I’ve never seen the Mona Lisa / I’ve never really left my room / I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero / Playing ‘Bark at the Moon,’” he sings, before letting loose a full-throated “Awooo!” The crowd answer in kind, howling in unison. It’s daft. It’s bliss.
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