JEFF MANGUM live at New England Conservatory Jordan Hall. Boston MA. 9.10.11

If you had told me last September that I’d be at a Jeff Mangum concert within a year, I wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, even if you had told me that after Mangum played his massively hyped surprise show in Brooklyn this past December, I still wouldn’t have believed you. And yet, that’s exactly where I was last night, packed into the New England Conservatory’s beautiful Jordan Hall in Boston Massachusetts with around 1,000 other Neutral Milk Hotel fans. If I were to guess, I’d say that they were probably just as surprised to be there as I was. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect, given the nature of the venue in addition to the air of mystery that constantly surrounds Jeff Mangum. Jordan Hall is an old theater that normally hosts classical music concerts, and it’s possibly the most beautiful building I’ve ever been in. It was amazing how the seats were arranged, because it seemed as though every seat in the house had an excellent view of the stage, without any obstruction whatsoever. I was seated in the balcony a few rows in, but my view was perfectly clear. 

The show was opened by a string quartet consisting of members of ACME — the American Contempory Music Ensemble, although they didn’t actually play any pieces by American composers that night. Instead, they played four pieces that were hand-selected by Mangum himself: Three proto-ambient pieces by Erik Satie and one experimental composition called “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet” by Gavin Bryars. The last piece had an interesting concept, but was a little difficult to listen to because of its length. Nevertheless, the group did an excellent job of setting the mood for the headlining show. 

When Jeff did come onstage, his guitars and microphones had already been meticulously arranged for him, along with bottled water, a music stand and various other pseudo-necessities. It was strange seeing such a professional and orderly setup for someone who turned out to be relatively casual in his delivery. Mangum even tried to dispel some of the solemness and professionalism associated with the theater and the whole setup with some banter between songs, engaging the audience and encouraging them to ask him questions, sing along, and even shout out song requests. He did all of this after opening with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’s lengthy album centerpiece ”Oh Comely”, which was probably a good strategic decision since that particular song commands such rapt attention from the audience with its dark tone. This makes sense, but I found it peculiar that he chose to follow that song up with “Two Headed Boy Pt. Two”, the closing track from the same album. Don’t get me wrong, “Two Headed Boy Pt. Two” is a great song — maybe my favorite Neutral Milk Hotel song ever — but I’ve always thought it was so great particularly because of its position on the album’s track list. Its sad and nostalgic tone makes it fit perfectly as an album closer, and I think it would have worked a lot better in the set if he had played it closer to the end of the show. He also seemed to be a little uncomfortable at the beginning, which compromised the quality of the first couple songs. He actually seemed to rush through both of them, which was a huge disappointment especially because “Oh Comely” works so well in the slower form that appears on the album. At the time, though, I wasn’t really thinking about this, and was mostly just in shock that I was actually seeing Jeff Mangum play live.

Thankfully, Mangum came into his own very quickly after those first two songs. The rest of his unpredictable and fascinating set consisted mostly of tracks from Neutral Milk Hotel’s two LPs, including some of my favorite songs from their often-overlooked debut On Avery Island, Without the horns, distortion, and explosive percussion, Avery Island opener ”Song Against Sex” felt a little hollow, but he made up for it with a performance of “A Baby For Pree” that featured an amazing additional final verse that I had never heard before. It extended the length of the song by about 50%, even though he was playing it much faster than the album version. Apparently he’s been playing “A Baby For Pree” in this way for a long time, but it was still a huge surprise to me. The lyrics to this version can be found HERE. Other On Avery Island cuts made appearances too, including ”Naomi”, my favorite song from that album. “Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone” was fantastic to hear as well, particularly the second part, which became a surprisingly huge singalong in the theater. 

Mangum hit all the important In The Aeroplane Over The Sea stops as well, playing the album’s title track early on as well as the aforementioned opening songs from his set. He picked up what appeared to be a Gibson hollow-body guitar to perform “Ghost” about halfway through the set, which gave it a reedier sound than the acoustic guitar on the album version. At the end of the set, he performed all three parts of the “King of Carrot Flowers” suite, which of course led to a crowd-wide “I LOVE YOU JESUS CHRIST” singalong, putting a big smile on Mangum’s face.

Although he closed with crowd favorite “Holland, 1945”, my personal favorite part of his main set came a little earlier. After “Naomi”, the four members of ACME came back on stage, surrounding Mangum’s chair, and began to play the opening string drone of “April 8th” while standing up. It was breathtaking watching Mangum play with the group, and when he finally brought his guitar strums into the mix, I was definitely getting chills. The performance made me realize how great and overlooked “April 8th” is. I tried to get pictures of it, but the guards were being obnoxious about photography during the show, even without flash. This is why I was only able to get a few pictures.

Mangum left the stage briefly to a standing ovation of cheering fans who had obviously been wowed consistently throughout the past hour or so. He returned soon thereafter to play an encore, which consisted of the classic b-side “Engine” and “Two-Headed Boy”, a song that never seems to lose its power over me no matter how many times I hear it. When he finished his encore, the crowd cheered even louder, and didn’t stop even after he had left the stage and the lights had been turned back on. Almost nobody exited the theater, and everyone continued to clap and cheer for at least 15 minutes before, finally, an exasperated Mangum came back onstage. He thanked everyone and said that he “really was done” and that he hadn’t prepared anything else to play, but apparently something overcame him and he sat back down in his chair for one last song. To everyone’s surprise, he began to play “Ferris Wheel On Fire”, an officially unreleased song which he debuted a couple weeks ago on the new Neutral Milk Hotel website. It was amazing hearing that song, especially because I’m pretty sure that he hasn’t played it live since the 90s. He sounded fantastic, and seemed incredibly gracious to play it.

While we were waiting for the show to start, I overheard someone next to me say something that had never really crossed my mind up to that point, but seems pretty relevant now. Jeff Mangum could have easily sold out a venue much larger than this one. He could have done a full tour with stops at bigger, more traditional rock venues and probably made a killing doing so. Instead, he played an intimate, personal concert in a stunningly beautiful theater. After so many years of shying away from the public eye, any kind of scheduled, ticketed Jeff Mangum performance would be surprising, much less the full scale tour that he’s doing now. I’m not going to claim that I understand Mangum’s motivations for doing this tour, but based on everything about last night’s show, I can rest easy knowing that they were genuine. Yes, there were a couple of issues, but they were negligible when taking the bigger picture into consideration. I saw a Jeff Mangum show, and I can still barely believe it.

8/10

Setlist:

• 1. “Oh Comely”
• 2. “Two-Headed Boy Pt. Two”
• 3. “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea”
• 4. “Song Against Sex” 
• 5. “A Baby For Pree” (Extended)
• 6. “True Love Will Find You In The End” (Daniel Johnston cover)
• 7. “Ghost”
• 8. “Gardenhead / Leave Me Alone”
• 9. “Naomi”
• 10. “April 8th” (with ACME)
• 11. “King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One”
• 12. “King Of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three”
• 13. “Holland, 1945”
• 14. “Engine” (Encore)
• 15. “Two-Headed Boy” (Encore)
• 16. “Ferris Wheel On Fire” (Second Encore)