Hey Auditees folks,

After many years of wishing, I finally got to see Jon Brion do his show at
Largo. Last Friday I had a free night in LA, so I waited outside the club to
get in (no reservations) to Brion's early show at 10PM. Cover charge was
$10. He did a later show, too, at Midnight.

Some observations:

+ Largo is a lot smaller than I thought. The main floor is crammed with
tables, and those of us with no reservations had to stand in the back near
the bar. But the place is so small and square that it's easy to see no
matter where you are.

+ The sound was perfect. Loud enough to rock, but quiet enough so you could
talk to your friends if necessary and no need for earplugs.

+ Jon is really skinny. And looks much smaller and shorter on stage than he
is in reality.

+ The stage is in the corner of the room, and there's a drum set in the back
corner of the stage. The left side of the stage has an upright piano (which
he played constantly) with a old celeste (is that what those bell-toned
keyboards are called?) next to it, and an old synth/sampler with a vocoder
mic on top of the piano. On the right side of the stage was a huge arsenal
of electric and acoustic guitars.

+ His opening song was a piano instrumental, with occasional lead solos on
the celeste and left-handed bass parts on the synth. Very cool stuff. He's a
virtuoso keyboard player.

+ The audience yelled requests, and the first one was "Piggies" by the
Beatles. Brion sampled his voice quickly on the vocoder and played a
note-perfect version of the song (nailing all those difficult chord
changes!). Another early cover was "Controversy" by Prince, done excellently
on the piano and keyboards.

+ He did numerous songs from his one solo album, and a few familiar pieces
from his movie soundtracks.

+ He played drums, looped the part thru the PA, added piano and looped it,
added bass (played on electric guitar pitched low thru a pedal) and looped
it, and sang and played lead electric on top of everything else. This trick
was used on numerous songs, and they all totally rocked. The songs seemed to
be original tunes, but maybe newer ones that have not yet been released.

+ His lamest cover was a speed-country version of "Jessie's Girl" on
acoustic guitar...I think he was just appeasing the audience. He didn't
really know the song, and the whole thing sorta collapsed.

+ Although there were tons of guitars on stage, he only used one electric
guitar. It was a small-sized old junky Sears catalog-style guitar. Like a
cheapo Silvertone or something. He mostly used it with tons of distortion,
which was fine, but when he played it clean it really sounded bad. But he
didn't seem to care.

+ The crowd was younger than I expected. Mostly young twentysomethings.

+ No special guests showed up. I don't know if anybody guested during the
later show.

All in all, the show was totally inspiring, laid back, and fun. Jon seemed
to be a very positive guy, and he played with joy all night, the way live
music should be. Go see him when you're in LA on a Friday.

Jonathan Rundman
http://www.jonathanrundman.com