Joshua Radin w/ My Name is You – Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis (5/14/13) live review

Tour Dates

 

“I feel like I’m playing to 12 people”, Joshua Radin exclaimed at the beginning of his intimate performance at the Dakota Jazz Club, a stop on his brief three week Wax Wings VIP Tour, playing to 350 seat or less venues in promotion of his self-released latest, Wax Wings (Glass Bead Music). His 84 min. performance came off as very personable- Radin answering requests and introducing himself to crowd members in a conversational and casual manner between songs that really did make the audience feel like they were witnessing something private and special.

 

Opening the evening was My Name is You, a West Coast-based duo whose EP debuted at the end of 2011. Brandon Walters and Anne Williamson, she from Scotland, came off as a bit of a reverse Swell Season, the keyboards of Williamson more driving the songs than Walters’ guitar, but the delicate 30 min set, which included songs ‘Everything That’ and ‘Come Back’ deliver enough of the goods as a low-key musical appetizer, to set the table for the main course.

Ohio-born Radin stepped on to the stage solo after a short break, and seemed genuinely surprised by his surroundings (“this is weird, man”, he stated)– not used to playing a jazz supper club, feeling the need to cross his legs when playing in true singer-songwriter fashion, and asking several patrons their names and where they were from. Minneapolis always holds a special place for Radin; for it was here that his first sold-out headlining show happened …”and for Kirby Puckett”, he added, drawing applause.

 

Settling in, he opened with the sentimental ‘What if You’ and followed with ‘Closer’ before taking an audience request to play the non-album cut, ‘Old Friend’. His Paul Simon-like vocals shone on a song written in Minneapolis, in a cold bunk on his tour bus after a gig- the moving, ‘One of Those Days’, one of many odes pining for the return of an ex-girlfriend. Openers Walters and Williamson along with a drummer joined him for the majority of the set, Radin even dedicating two songs, ‘When We’re Together’ and ‘Today’ to Minnesota’s passing of the same-sex marriage act, signed earlier that day by the Governor.

Highlight of the show was undoubtedly an off-mike, acoustic spirited performance of Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, the first song he ever learned on guitar. The fact that Radin knew that Dylan was from Hibbing, MN made the song even cooler for the attending audience. After a short break, the encore was the somehow-appropriate ‘Winter’, a song that many locals have been living until very recently and in contrast he noted, to the 98-degree weather earlier in the day.

In the end, the ‘VIP Tour’ lived up to its expectations—a rare chance to catch an exceptional so-called ‘whispercore’ artist playing his well-crafted songs, mixing in conversation and stories, in an exceptional intimate venue – For 84 min, we were all treated to the VIP experience.