Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Jesse Welles\u2019 fans demonstrate their affection in the normal pop music ways. <\/p>\n
At the Met Philly on Friday night, they rose to their feet and sang along to songs like \u201cFentanyl\u201d and \u201cFear Is the Mind Killer,\u201d and waved arms overhead as instructed by the Ozark, Ark.,-born songwriter. <\/p>\n
And after Welles and his band capped off a 24-song set with Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2019s \u201cHave You Ever Seen The Rain?,\u201d the crowd called him back on stage for a triumphant three-song solo acoustic encore. <\/p>\n
But there\u2019s also another component in the relationship between the skinny songsmith with a big messy mop of curly locks. Welles performed on North Broad Street on a stage designed to evoke the title of the three Under the Powerlines albums he\u2019s released in the last year and a half, which between them include 124 songs. <\/p>\n
That added element is gratitude, which the packed house displayed at the Met with frequent shout-outs. During quiet moments between songs Friday, the most popular words that fans bellowed at the top of their lungs weren\u2019t \u201cI love you!\u201d or even \u201cGo Birds!\u201d <\/p>\n
They were \u201cThank you, Jessie!,\u201d a show of appreciation for the role Welles, 33, has cast himself in as a topical troubadour carrying on the protest-song tradition of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez, whom he teamed with last year on the protest anthem \u201cNo Kings.\u201d <\/p>\n
Welles had a decade-long journeyman\u2019s career under various monikers until he found his metier in 2024 with an old-school solo guitar (and, sometimes, harmonica) performance style disseminated in two-minute clips ideally suited to go viral on TikTok<\/a>.<\/p>\n Talking back to the Trump administration and singing out on hot-button topics has fueled the froggy-voiced Welles\u2019 ascendancy. With tunes like \u201cUnited Health\u201d and \u201cWar Isn\u2019t Murder,\u201d about the human cost of the war in Gaza, which was the show closer on Friday, Welles has rapidly moved up the venue food chain.<\/p>\n Early in 2025, Welles played an intimate gig at the World Cafe Live \u2014 before that venue entered crisis mode<\/a> \u2014 in a show that featured a guest appearance by Matt Quinn of Mt. Joy, with whom he first recorded the CCR cover mentioned above.<\/p>\n By this spring, he had moved up to the 2,500-capacity Fillmore in Fishtown<\/a>. He did a pop-up show at Race Street Pier in June, a performance that spawned a TikTok of him leading a \u201cThis Land Is Your Land\u201d singalong under the shadow of the Ben Franklin Bridge. <\/p>\n Now, Welles\u2019 following has swelled to the size of the 3,500-capacity Met, and his visibility has grown with late-night TV appearances and as a regular at the annual Farm Aid concerts, where Dave Matthews introduced him as \u201cone of the best songwriters I\u2019ve ever heard in my life\u201d in 2024.<\/p>\n At the Met, Welles began the show in solo troubadour mode with a six-song burst of pointed tunes that get their satirical perspective across, at their best, with nimble language and sharp-eyed humor without settling for lazy sloganeering. <\/p>\n The best of that opening salvo was \u201cNerd Reich,\u201d a song inspired by Gil Duran\u2019s new book<\/a> The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. <\/p>\n In it, Welles expressed exasperation at life in Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s America with lyrics like \u201cI get weary, I get nervous \/ They hired a clown, we get the whole damn circus.\u201d And he also got some amusing zingers off, referring to Vice President J.D. Vance as \u201ca carbon-based life-form in khaki pants.\u201d <\/p>\n But Welles know better than to limit himself to being a purely political artist, or an entirely one-dimensional musician. <\/p>\n He followed his opening solo set by bringing out four bandmates \u2014 guitarist Adam Meisterhans, bassist player Joel Parks, drummer Connor Streeter, and keyboard player Bobby Steinfeld \u2014 and immediately plugging in and rocking out at high volume. <\/p>\n The eight-song section of the show that followed included a cover of Black Sabbath\u2019s \u201cWar Pigs.\u201d It was highlighted by \u201cJoin Ice,\u201d a faux Department of Homeland Security recruitment song that advertises for would-be bullies. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a hole in my soul that just rages,\u201d he sang. \u201cAll the ladies turned me down and I felt like a clown \/ But would you look at me now? I\u2019m puttin\u2019 people in cages.\u201d<\/p>\n Welles\u2019 switching up from strummy folk ditties to heavy rock was a smart change of pace, but didn\u2019t always play to his strengths. <\/p>\n Much of the music in that stretch of the show \u2014 which was opened by Brooklyn folk-rocker Hudson Freeman \u2014 was sludgy and lacked a distinctive identity, though Welles found his feet with \u201cRed,\u201d the title cut to his latest studio album. <\/p>\n But what came next was heartening. When Welles dismissed the band and was once again alone on stage, the solo songs he performed were introspective, nuanced and marked by impressive finger-picking guitar playing. <\/p>\n In that stretch, he covered an early Dylan song. But rather than a political broadside it was the beautiful if mean-spirited \u201cDon\u2019t Think Twice, It\u2019s Alright,\u201d which meshed nicely with his own \u201cFriends\u201d and \u201cThis Is Not My Song.\u201d <\/p>\n When Welles called the musicians back for the fourth act of the episodic evening, they sounded like a different band. Instead of heavy metal thunder, they conveyed folk-rock subtlety, first with \u201cSiddhartha,\u201d and most effectively on \u201cHorses.\u201d<\/p>\n That song is about trying to get past enmity and hoping to avoid being swallowed up by anger. Welles and band put it over with a touch of grace.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019m singing about loving and the people you\u2019ve come to hate,\u201d he sang. \u201cIt\u2019s true what they say, I\u2019m going to die someday \/ So why am I holding on to all the weight?\u201d<\/p>\n As folk singers go, Welles is oddly tight-lipped between songs, with no chatty intros or origin stories adding context. He lets the music \u2014 and his abundant lyrics \u2014 speak for themselves. <\/p>\n And for all the seriousness of his subject matter, Welles can also be a goofball. (There\u2019s a John Prine influence there.) Songs on on his TikTok <\/a> include one about \u201cPizza<\/a>\u201d and another concerning \u201cBeavers.\u201d And he began his encore with the playful \u201cBugs.\u201d <\/p>\n That song is slight, and self-consciously silly. But in declaring his fondness for insects of all kinds it nonetheless got at a humanist message that runs through all of Welles\u2019 music. \u201cI like bugs,\u201d he sang, \u201cThey\u2019re alive, and so am I.\u201d <\/p>\n