Jonathan Coulton Rocks Northhampton

Last night Jonathan Coulton rocked at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA. You should go to tonight's concert. Before he gets too big and you can't get tickets for love or money.

Somerville Theater – Somerville, MA
Friday July 23 at 7:30 PM
Tickets

The new music is really great, it rocks, and his band is absolutely top-notch. I think I could make out most of the words and the songs seem to be up to his standards, as well. I look forward to getting my hands on the album so I can enjoy the lyrics and hear the nuances in the music. It would seem to be all there - the whole Coulton package.

I'd really like to know how the band liked having a room full of people sing, "All we wanna do is eat your brains" at them. That might not have seemed too odd to John Flansburgh, since he might be a giant. But the other guy, Chris Anderson, was both a truly fine musician *and* really funny. (There was some ribbing about sweating on stage, and he played his part just right.) I have no idea what he thought of a room full of zombie singers - it would've been neat to get a reaction.

So here's the thing. If I could tell him what he should be doing with his stage show as he busts out into the really big time, I'd tell him to be more like Garth Brooks and less like Weird Al Yankovic, even though I'd bet his music appeals more to the Weird Al fan than the Garth Brooks fan.

Why do I say this?

• I will never go to another Weird Al concert without earplugs.
• Garth Brooks talks a lot more between songs *and to the audience* than Weird Al.

(If Garth Brooks played his concert as loud as Weird Al does, you couldn't hear the commentary anyhow, so there would be no point.)

Maybe I misunderstood him, but I thought he was telling us he wished he wasn't talking to the audience so much and that he wants to ditch his acoustic guitar completely. He wants to ROCK. And he's good at it. He could do exactly that.
But if you look at Garth Brooks' career, you have to see that a musician doesn't have to go the all-music very-little-intro route to whip an audience into a glorious, happy, screaming frenzy.

JoCo is on the verge of the big time and I'm cheering for him. I want him to get his rock-n-roll dream. He deserves it, and his music is considerably better than most of the stuff out there on the charts. He's not going to disappoint me, even if he never writes another song like one of my favorites, "I'm your Moon." I'm just afraid he's going make me miss him when he's standing right in front of me.

He's so great. You gotta go see him.