The show was to take place in the main room (upstairs) of Fitzgerald’s club on the edge of the Heights. It’s been in operation as a modern music venue since the late seventies. The room has a lot of memories for me as I remember going to see Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble there in the early eighties. It’s not a large room, with standing general admission for the most part and a few chairs in a small balcony area. The room’s sound is excellent.

Father John took the stage alone to introduce the opening act, Jessica Pratt, with a request for quiet and respect for the artist (basically would anyone that wanted to have a conversation please have it elsewhere). A diminutive almost elfish looking lady took his place at the microphone, holding an acoustic guitar and accompanied by a keyboardist/ guitarist. Her set consisted of a beautiful voice singing lyrics full of imagery over gentle finger picking, all played through a reverb amp. The young man accompanied her with long tonal notes from either the keyboards or his guitar. The effects were very trippy, almost like the soundtrack to ghostly fantasy adventure film. After the show, I listened to a few of her tunes on YouTube, sans the reverb and was very impressed with her songwriting abilities.

Father John Misty took the stage after a short break to set up. I want to give kudos to the road crew for very efficient work. I’ve seen a number of them in action and these guys didn’t seem to waste a second and everything worked. These unsung heroes of a music tour deserve some recognition for a job well done.

The band consisted of FJM on vocals and occasional acoustic guitar, two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist and a drummer. The first notes from the bass amp set the stage (that I was leaning on) to vibrating and the vibrations kept up through most of the show. They started the set out with “Fun Times in Babylon” the opening number from “Fear Fun”. The main set consisted of almost every song from the disc, but not in disc order.

What strikes you first about Father John Misty is his stage presence. He immediately exerts complete control over the room first via microphone statements and then by his amazing voice range that brings his lyrics to life and then by his dance moves. Sometimes he shifts his hips like Mick Jagger, sometimes he hangs on the mike stand like Iggy Pop, and he most certainly has the Jim Morrison stagger-dance down to a tee. His stage presence (although not his music) reminds me most of Morrison, coming across as a little bit cocky and a whole lot of sexual bravado. All the while, though, there is a tongue in cheek sarcasm that he seems to coat the entire performance in. I have a hard time seeing the line where Father John Misty stops being serious and traverses into parody and I wonder if Josh Tillman has the same difficulty. There is no doubt, though, that Father John Misty controls the stage.

The band is a tight touring group as full of rock and roll exhibitionism as they are musically in sync. The band laid down some serious rocking and rolling on “I’m Writing a Novel”. “Misty’s Nightmares 1&2” feature Father John’s clean clear vocal range with an extra dose of hip shimmies. Father John threw down the “Not in my Name” gauntlet with his song “You can Do it Without Me”.

There was irony in the air as Misty sang “Now I’m Learning to Love the War” with the line, “Try not to think so much about the truly staggering amount of oil that it takes to make a record”, while the Offshore Technology Conference (the world’s largest petroleum drilling convention) was taking place in the convention center downtown. Father John donned an acoustic guitar for his performance of the country and western tinged “Tee Pees 1-12”.

The main set ended with a most energetic display of lights, distortion and frantic mike-stand dancing on “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”. At the climax of the song, Father Misty was writhing on the floor with the mike chord wrapped around his neck while lights strobed a stop action movie effect and feedback ruled the amps. The room capacity crowd went wild.

The encore started with Father John Misty coming out solo with an acoustic guitar and performing a new song about going to the store and meeting a young lady with whom he strikes up an ill-fated relationship. He seems to be casting a light on how small everyday occurrences and decisions steer our lives. The band joined him on stage for an extremely demonstrative performance of the Beatles tune “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. This song may have crossed the line from irony to sarcasm simply in the choice to perform it the week after one of the most publicized meetings of the NRA in history had taken place at the Houston convention center the week before. The last song of the encore was a full band version of the new song, “I Love You, Honeybear”.

The performance was one of the best rock and roll shows that I’ve seen this year. The band was tight and ready to take the show on the road. Father John Misty, himself, was ready to make his social statements in a fun and poignant way. The audience at hand was entranced by the performance. FJM has shows scheduled through the summer and I would highly recommend getting in line early. This snowball is likely to gather girth as it rolls.