MJ Lenderman is definitely having a moment. His 2024 album Manning Fireworks has been critically acclaimed and picked up its share of industry nods, including being named by The New Yorker as best album of 2024. And alt-country couldn’t be more in. Lenderman defines a laid back amalgamation of country and indie and slacker ruminations on life that seem effortless but are clearly meticulously crafted and musically brilliant. His concert at the Sydney Opera House saw him on the other side of the world from his home turf of North Carolina, with a devoted sold-out crowd, who not only knew all the words to his songs, but seemed to have also all dressed from his closet. They were all in.
And yet while in the middle of his own zeitgest, it is also clear that MJ Lenderman, particularly when he is on stage with his band The Wind, is embodying a kind of nostalgia, he is re-anacting and re-performing a kind of band and a kind of music for not necessarily a new generation, but for a new time. There’s a surfs-up, sofa-lolling casual riffing hair- over- the- eyes kind of cool, accompanied by lyrics full of poignantly painful minutiae, that’s always been attractive, and MJ Lenderman and The Wind have perfected their own version down to a tee.
They came onto stage and burst open with Manning Fireworks and Joker Lips, and so by the time they got to the even bigger hit of Wristwatch, the crowd were well and truly ecstatic. There was committed head- nodding and back and forward swaying, from an attentive crowd that mixed up older alt-country fans with the T-shirts to prove it, and a younger audience from a similar demo to Lenderman.
Throughout the band seemed thrilled to have found such a lot of fans in Australia. Jon Samuels on guitar was clearly having the time of his life and gifted the Opera House with a magnificent display of his long locks flying backwards and forwards for a good straight ten minutes,
They smashed through an impressive setlist and came back for an encore with a cover of the Neil Young classic Lotta Love which brought the house down, before finishing up with Hangover and GameKnockin’.
Throughout the night they were confident and skilfull enough to play around with the tunes, encourage each other in some jams, and stay connected to the audience with their narrative which included some mentions of home and a focus on some of the meaning of the songs. Unsurprisingly as so many of his lyrics are humorous, on the night, from behind his mop of hair, MJ Lenderman was often very funny.
MJ LENDERMAN
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
25th March 2025
SETLIST
Ohm
Manning Fireworks
Joker Lips
Wristwatch
Rudolph
Toontown
You Have Bought Yourself a Boat
TLC Cage Match
Pianos
Dancing in the Club
She’s Leaving You
Rip Torn
You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In
On My Knees
Bark at the Moon
No Mercy
Lotta Love
Hangover
GameKnockin’
