Where Has the Music Gone? Mason Jennings Live Show Review

Mason Jennings, Your Voice Sounds Like a Mix Between Fergie and Jesus

Saturday night found the Mexicutioner, Mrs. Mexicutioner, Jess and myself at the El Rey in West LA at a Mason Jennings show.  While he will never be as popular as his former tour-mate Jack Johnson, Mason’s incredible songwriting and easy appeal make him the (vastly, and it’s not even close) superior of the two.  This is the third time I’ve seen Mason, which ties him with Lagwagon and Face to Face (RIP.  Just kidding.  You’re still alive I guess) for bands I’ve seen the most often.  And if you’re wondering why Mason’s name is familiar it’s probably because of his famous “Make yourself at home/ Cos I’m going out/ Across the street to get us some water” song from what will always be my favorite surf movie “Shelter”.  With his new album “Blood of Man” bumping on our drive down and some semi-dodgy directions we did our best to arrive late and miss the opener but despite our best efforts we still arrived twenty minutes before the show started–nothing a $7 cup of beer Bug Light won’t fix though, right?

Mason’s new album is probably both the darkest and heaviest he’s released to date which may not be much in the grand scheme of dark/heavy music (this is the guy whose [arguably] best known songs are called “Butterfly” and “Darkness Between the Fireflies” so we’re not exactly talking about “Raining Blood” by Slayer) but when the good Lord has blessed you with a voice like Mason’s, songs like “Pittsburgh” and “The Field” have an incredible weight to them.  Mixing in older favorites like the harmonica-driven “Crown” and my personal favorite “Hospitals and Jails” with almost the entire new album, Mason played a solid, if a bit understated, ninety-minutes.  The amiable and good naturedness he has always displayed in the past was kept mostly in check and he shared only a few stories with the thousand or so of us there.  While I would have loved to have seen him end the show with either “Ulysses” or the crazy acoustic-electric version of “Bulls on Parade” that I saw him bust out in San Francisco I won’t complain about anything except again to mention if you are standing in the pit area shut your mouth when the artist is singing.  Go make out with your chick or talk about your facebook page by the bar.  Is that so hard to do?

There are few things as rewarding as seeing a singer like Mason Jennings (and his band, of course); so often we’re confronted by repetitive, mindless garbage it’s easy to forget that songs can be stories and certain singers can evoke images so real that you can almost feel them first hand.  Even if you’ve never camped out on a rocky beach, stepped quietly through Big Sur, chased ghosts through New Orleans or hitchhiked through the Midwest, Mason’s music will make you feel like you have.  Plus, chicks dig it.  So there’s that too.