Photos by Nalinee Darmrong
Josh Tillman is a singularly bizarre man and, in several respects, inhabiting the persona of Father John Misty allows him to showcase his weird duality. On one hand, he has named his latest release with the most painfully schmaltzy title to have hit shelves in some time: I Love You, Honeybear. It doesn’t stop there: the album is filled with unabashedly earnest love songs complete with full string sections that guide them into their big swelling choruses. Watching a man in a well-tailored suit belt these grandiose, heartwarming numbers to hordes of hugging couples was a stark reminder that there are people who un-ironically love Neil Diamond and that those people do so for a good reason.
However, the big glaring difference is that Tillman is kind of an ornery son-of-a-bitch and that aspect of the Father John Misty stage show was on display Saturday night as well. Although he packages that mercurial personality (dare we say, occasional hostility?) into impeccably belted love songs, it’s just as much a part of his starkly straightforward character. His sole stage prop was an enormous heart shaped neon sign that says “No Photography” in perfect script. Essentially a “fuck you” delivered with a huge toothy smile to the digital generation.
But it wasn’t the night’s only kiss-off by a long shot. He sarcastically introduced his encore as “the songs that were suspiciously absent during his set.” And in the breath immediately following the one that delivered his appreciation of the audience’s “positive affirmations,” he not so quietly told someone in the front row that he’d kick them out if he could.
It’s not irony—Tillman is both a half-jaded, mushroom-gobbling troubadour and a love-filled doting new husband (although it’s all packaged in a sort of strange caricature). He didn’t until the encore wait to hoist his microphone stand through the crowd or climb with evangelical zeal onto his bass drum—those walls had already been broken by the end of song number one. Similarly, in the first line of his titular song, he refers to his bedsheets as a Rorschach test of “mascara, blood, ash, and cum” and he had no problem plastering that laundry list onto the t-shirts and tote bags sold in the back.
Indeed, between the repetition of pet names and affirmations of love, he doesn’t shy away from delivering potentially off-putting lines like “save me white Jesus” or others that will jolt people out of what could be a warm, fuzzy reverie. By being so fully endorsed in both parts of his persona, Tillman has found his audience and they’re just as zealous about his material as he is.
While a T-Rex influenced Stratocaster toting guitarist may seem like a weird opener for a guy armed with big, sincere love songs, the pairing of King Tuff and Father John Misty actually makes sense—they both unironically embody a character.
King Tuff is a throwback to the denim-clad rock & roll acts of the late ’70s and early ’80s that chased good times, cheap booze, and sleazy riffs in equal measure. Yet, King Tuff’s homage to this era was unmistakeably good natured and it included a whistling bassist who went by “Magic Jake.” Amidst the lyrics about eternal youth and girls with heavy metal record collections, King Tuff (nee Kyle Thomas) banged his head and bounced about under an enormous trucker hat and grinned his way through the smoke machine that he set off periodically. He also offered a dedication to Ex Hex, their former tourmates and fellow fans of roller rink-ready rock.
