{"id":6403,"date":"2025-10-17T14:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/6403\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T14:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:06:07","slug":"mj-lenderman-plays-new-york-on-rs-gather-no-moss-tour-live-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/6403\/","title":{"rendered":"MJ Lenderman Plays New York on RS’ Gather No Moss Tour: Live Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cThis is, like, our 15th time in New York<\/a>,\u201d MJ Lenderman<\/a> told the crowd at Brooklyn\u2019s Kings Theatre on Thursday night. That\u2019s only a slight exaggeration. This time last year, the North Carolina guitarist kicked off three nights at the 650-capacity Music Hall of Williamsburg in support of his breakthrough solo album, Manning Fireworks<\/a>. He\u2019s returned to New York multiple times since then with his backing band, the Wind, playing increasingly bigger venues each time as he quickly became everyone\u2019s new favorite indie rock hero<\/a>. Last night, the 3,250-capacity Brooklyn theater marked the final stop on his lengthy tour \u2014 and he was ready to party. \u201cWe are celebrating!\u201d the 26-year-old told the audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThursday night also marked the last stop on Rolling Stone\u2019s Gather No Moss <\/a>showcase, a multi-city rock & roll tour, sponsored by ~Pourri and iHeartRadio, that rolled through Denver <\/a>(featuring Mk.gee as the headliner), Chicago<\/a> (The Beaches), and Nashville<\/a> (Wet Leg) earlier this year. It was only fitting that Gather No Moss<\/a> concluded in the beautifully restored, 96-year-old Kings Theatre, with its ornate ceilings, proscenium arch, and stage that has hosted countless legends, from Diana Ross to Pavement<\/a>. (If concerts aren\u2019t your thing, you can catch a 40th anniversary screening of Clue there next month.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe evening began with an opening set by Nashville singer-songwriter Annie DiRusso<\/a>, who grew up an hour north of here, in Croton-on-Hudson. \u201cIt\u2019s a vibe in here!\u201d she said excitedly, tearing through excellent cuts from her recent album, Super Pedestrian. When someone in the crowd yelled, \u201cWho are you?\u201d she casually replied, \u201cOK, who am I? My name\u2019s Annie. A lot of people would say I\u2019m pretty chill.\u201d Her songs were just as chill, whether she was delivering rockers about hot hookups (\u201cLegs\u201d) or letdowns (\u201cBack in Town\u201d). Before playing the searing \u201cI Am the Deer,\u201d she said, \u201cI wrote this next one about\u2026 if I were to repeatedly run myself over with a car.\u201d A vibe in here, indeed.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tThe indie pop duo Hovvdy<\/a> took the stage next, pumping up the crowd for the headliner: \u201cFuckin\u2019 MJ Lenderman! How \u2018bout that?\u201d The Austin, Texas band, made up of Charlie Martin and Will Taylor, played gems from their 2024 self-titled album, including \u201cHeartstring\u201d and \u201cJean.\u201d They also dug into 2021\u2019s True Love (the delicate \u201cBlindsided,\u201d the highlight \u201cJunior Day League\u201d), an album that boygenius<\/a> have cited as an inspiration. Hovvdy concluded their set with the title track from that LP, now nearly five years old. \u201cDo you believe what I said?\u201d they sang. \u201cThat I\u2019m the man I say I am?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHovvdy performed before Lenderman took the stage<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJenna Murray for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the time Lenderman took the stage around 9:30 p.m., the general admission floor was jam-packed with fans, all of them excited for a chance to stand close to the pyre, manning fireworks. He opened with the wry, downcast song that gave his most recent album its name (\u201cYou\u2019ve been betting on horses called Johnny-Come-Lately\/You\u2019ve been high on the hog, and the dogs seem to hate you\u201d), then threw everyone a major curveball by playing his much-celebrated<\/a> cover of This Is Lorelei<\/a>\u2019s \u201cDancing in the Club<\/a>.\u201d Lenderman\u2019s version of that song was one of 2025\u2019s peak moments in rock, one brilliant indie songwriter tipping his cap to another, and we were hoping he\u2019d perform it at some point during his set. Seeing him make it the second song immediately set the tone for the rest of the evening: This was going to rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWe were in for several surprises. Lenderman noted that for all the times he and the Wind have performed in New York on this tour, they\u2019d never played \u201cSacrifice (For Love)\u201d in the city until tonight. It\u2019s a cover of a 1991 song by Greg Sage, frontman of influential Pacific Northwest punk act the Wipers; Lenderman first sang it on a 2021 EP with the band Wednesday (they reissued it last summer). He went on to contribute to Wednesday up through their fantastic new album, Bleeds<\/a>, though he won\u2019t be touring with that band when they kick off their tour this week. This take on \u201cSacrifice (For Love)\u201d was the closest we\u2019ll get to hearing him perform any Wednesday material for some time.<\/p>\n

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\n\tHe then sank into the sadness of \u201cPick Up the Pieces<\/a>,\u201d a gut-punch of a new song he\u2019s been performing on tour since August. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t love, you were just dumb enough\/To call me an angel,\u201d he sang across Trevor Nikrant\u2019s pedal steel. \u201cMeanwhile, I\u2019m here, taking\/Gas station drugs for all things painful.\u201d It was a remarkable moment that proved that there\u2019s a lot more where Manning Fireworks came from, and Lenderman is just getting started.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you release a no-skips album packed with instantly quotable lines and riffs that make fans play embarrassing air guitar when they hear them (it\u2019s us, we\u2019re fans), it\u2019s almost impossible to have a boring concert moment. Lenderman and his band \u2014 Nikrant, guitarist and fiddle player Landon George, drummer Colin Miller, guitarist Jon Samuels \u2014 delivered nonstop Manning Fireworks magic for the rest of the night, from an emotional \u201cRip Torn\u201d to a downright euphoric \u201cBark at the Moon.\u201d No matter how many times he\u2019s played New York, fans will always lose their minds during the latter, particularly when he sings, \u201cDon\u2019t move to New York City, babe, it\u2019s gonna change the way you dress.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tDuring the encore, George returned onstage to speak to the audience. \u201cPut that spotlight on me, I got some stuff to tell you,\u201d the fiddle man told the lighting crew. \u201cMake it sexy!\u201d He urged New Yorkers to vote for Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani<\/a> in the upcoming mayoral race, early voting for which begins on Oct. 25. Mamdani spoke<\/a> at Lenderman\u2019s first of three Brooklyn Steel shows last spring, and he recently appeared onstage with Lucy Dacus<\/a> at All Things Go 2025. \u201cYou better get out and vote for Zohran!\u201d George continued. \u201cI wish that we had a Zohran down in the South, where I live!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLenderman & Co. got back onstage for a raucous encore of \u201cKnockin,\u2019\u201d from his 2023 live album And the Wind (Live and Loose!). It\u2019s the perfect set closer, giving the band a chance to let loose and Lenderman an opportunity to really go for it when he howls about how he\u2019s \u201cknock, knock, knock, knockin\u2019 on heaven\u2019s door tonight!\u201d At Kings Theatre, as thousands of rock fans sang along, we were right there with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is, like, our 15th time in New York,\u201d MJ Lenderman told the crowd at Brooklyn\u2019s Kings Theatre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5688,5689,5690,5691,5692,5693,9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-6403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-annie-dirusso","9":"tag-direct","10":"tag-gather-no-moss","11":"tag-hovvdy","12":"tag-indie-rock","13":"tag-mj-lenderman","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}