MJ Lenderman live in London: the unassuming new star of indie rock

With no genuinely new sonic ground left to tread, indie rock has found itself circling through sounds from the past in the last decade and beyond. In the 2020s so far, minimal, folk-inspired balladry took its place as the sound of the moment, with Phoebe Bridgers its de facto leader and countless impersonators following in her wake. With new album Manning Fireworks and at his superb first ever gigs in the UK, the defining artist of the genre’s next wave looks sure to be MJ Lenderman.

Asheville, North Carolina native Jake Lenderman has been making southern-fried, jam band-influenced Americana with wry and hilarious lyrics since 2018. He also serves as guitarist for Wednesday, another band bringing alt-country back to the conversation. Lenderman’s 2022 album Boat Songs was a sleeper hit that made him a new star in indie circles, and Manning Fireworks, released back in September, took the promise one step further and sharpened his observations on ordinary, run-down folks and their disappointing relationships.

“I’ve never seen the Mona Lisa / I’ve never really left my room / I’ve been up too late with Guitar Hero playing ‘Bark At The Moon’,” he sings on Manning Fireworks closer ‘Bark At The Moon’, recalling shredding away on the Ozzy Osbourne classic on those uncool but formative plastic guitars. On the non-album single ‘Knockin’’, he interpolates ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’ by way of referencing golfer John Daly’s bizarre 2010 cover of the Dylan classic, while the anthemic ‘She’s Leaving You’ sees him direct gently scathing words at a guy who’s about to be dumped and “believe[s] that Clapton was the second coming”. Rather than pure reverence, he looks at his rock and roll forebears with a raised eyebrow and soft humour.

Until now, UK-based Lenderman fans have only been able to glimpse his live show through last year’s excellent Live And Loose! live album with his band The Wind, and the descriptor still stands true at the second of his two sold-out nights at north London’s The Garage. Playing the majority of Manning Fireworks as well as highlights from Boat Songs and beyond, Lenderman and his six-piece band’s set stretches for nearly two hours, with every song descending into frenzied solos and extended jam sections. It’s loose but not formless, and the jams always resolve into a following song or reprise of the tune they detoured away from for five minutes of shredding.

Lenderman is an unassuming and somewhat unnatural frontman, and eyes are easily focused instead on pedal steel player and multi-instrumentalist Xandy Chelmis, who is also a member of Wednesday and thrashes around gloriously on all manner of instruments across the show. While almost all of the show is played at mid-tempo, it’s only on the fierce ‘SUV’ that the band kicks into another gear, with the firm sense that the band were waiting for the moment to get even looser.

With few words to the crowd except to encourage fans to purchase the huge Cardinals at the Window compilation for hurricane relief in his hometown, Lenderman is a humble showman, but there is deep meaning beneath his lyrical jokes about American sports stars and tales of everyday disappointment, making him a worthy figurehead for this exciting new era of indie rock.