- By
- Branden Janese
- Photography by
- Alexander Wagner
CMJ 2015: TOBIAS JESSO JR.
“Do you mind standing closer to the trumpet? I want to serenade to the crowd,” the accordion player asked me, his long blond dreads tapping my shoulder as we switched places on the balcony at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. The band played New Orleans jazz and the nosebleed section got to be front and center for five minutes. Then they marched single file downstairs without missing a beat. Next, Tobias Jesso Jr. walked across the stage with his afro in his eyes and a drink in his hand. He wore a pair of black jeans and a forest green sweater, sat behind the piano, and finished playing with the band. The way the crowd danced to the interlude, Jesso knew they’d been captivated and asked confidently, “So, how do you guys like the band?” The hall erupted with hoorays.
After performing “Can’t Stop Thinking About You,” Jesso introduced his drummer, Kane, and quickly asked him to take off his shirt, apparently a request he makes during every show. Kane refused to, and instead recounted a story about the time he told a sold-out crowd that he couldn’t remove his shirt because he had genital warts. It was clear Jesso and his bandmates don’t take themselves too seriously. A highlight of the show came when he covered the Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” with trumpet player Jay Jay on vocals. At the end of “Hollywood,” Jesso laughed and said, “Wow, those long notes make me feel like Beyoncé.” The charismatic crooner may not have a catalogue full of dance records, but his playful attitude between the slow love songs kept the mood light.
The Canadian-born singer/songwriter has been touring for years, but admits he’s not used to being in front of a crowd. When he called out a couple in the audience who were talking over “Can We Still Be Friends,” he said, “The only way I can do this is if I pretend that I’m in my basement. I can’t do that if you’re talking about making a Swiss cheese sandwich.” The crowd laughed even though Jesso was half serious. Before performing “Just a Dream,” he asked the audience which version they wanted to hear, reggae, metal, or “Haim.” “We try to switch it up every now and then, although afterwards everyone hates it. Let’s just do it the normal way,” he concluded. But it’s hard to hate lyrics like “Never had nobody else/No bestest friend until the end to talk about/But then I met this little girl/And I could see she would be my whole wide world,” in any key. Jesso ended the set with a solo of “True Love,” a demo that was released as a single. “This is how it sounded in my basement,” he cried. The theme of Jesso’s show was, do your thing like nobody’s watching. A mantra we all can learn something from.
- By
- Branden Janese
- Photography by
- Alexander Wagner
