Review | Attitude Problem Child, the Good Kind: Father John Misty Returns

Father John Misty, as the saying goes, is — and has been — an interesting bunch of people. As we were reminded with the latest local appearance of the good father, born Josh Tillman, at the Santa Barbara Bowl, here we have an artist who exemplifies the prospect of reinvention in public.

As most Misty fans know, he formerly drummed for the indie folk rock band Fleet Foxes, and re-emerged as a shoe-gazing singer-songwriter as J. Tillman (stopping in at the humble Haley Street hipness cave of Muddy Waters back in its day). Then, voila, the strange quasi-slick art pop prankster Father John Misty hit the scene with his artful brew of an album Fear Fun in 2012.

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A baker’s dozen of years down the road, Misty remains mysterious yet charismatic, hooky yet elusive, confident yet self-questioning. The paradox prevailed in a dark suited and bearded mystic form at the Bowl. 

Tillman’s Misty persona and songbook are by now well-entrenched enough that he don’t need no stinking new album to build a tour around. The latest Bowl set came a year after the release of the savory album Mahashmashana and entailed a mixed salad of a setlist from over his growing body of work in progress.

But this Thursday night sensation of a show was not all about Tillman/Misty. Rather, he was the ringleader or tent preacher-like character capping off an altogether strong and memorable three-act, four-hour revue extravaganza. The affair opened with the “should be more famous” Hamilton Leithauser, followed by Americana queen Lucinda Williams. Somehow, both artists help illuminate aspects of the Father’s odd musical chemistry experiment. 

Leithauser is a tall and diversely gifted New Yorker, playing the Bowl with a sturdy band of Texans. The former leader of the indie band The Walkmen, Leithauser sports a strong and flexible voice — scooting up to the high range with ease — and with a sure way with songwriting, slithering between country, punk and other pop zones. His short but fetching set served as a prime example of why it pays to show up for opening acts. 

Williams, who has graced this stage many times now, remains an American icon, even in her mobility-challenged status after a stroke in 2020. With her nimble band, Williams crafted a set of original beauties including the poignant “Drunken Angel,” “Fruits of My Labor.” and “You Can’t Rule Me,” and a final spin through Neil Young’s anthemic “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World.”  Which she did, although the “free” part may be in peril at the moment.

Then came the main event, center ring, with Misty and his ace seven-piece band. They were backed, aptly, by a massive red show biz curtain — in projected form, sometimes suggesting the Loony Tunes end logo minus Porky Pig. After opening with the almost disco-pulsed “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All,” Misty took the packed crowd into his confidence and admitted that, “sometimes, I start dreading that dance part around two or three in the afternoon before a show.” In another example of his tendency to put up a meta-style performance art filter, he later thanked the audience, but with a caveat: “We appreciate the performance of your response.” Not one to buy into rockstar hubris, Misty is a pop star who also plays the role of a pop star on stage and on record.

Early in the set, Misty tapped into his identity-plumbing tactics with the songs “Mr. Tillman,” and the newish “J. Tillman and the Accidental Dose,” with such lines as “Baby, who wears pearls at 4 a.m.? / This Pynchon yuppie found / Meaning’s end.” Misty is often searching for meaning, taking pokes at and sincerely questioning religion, and chronicling what seem like personal demons of the past and present.

But he and we have a good time, all the while. He got good and darkly pulpy with “Nothing Good ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow,” took to romantic rabbit holes with “Nancy From Now On,” and the Lennon/Ono nodding “Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins),” and delivered a genuinely poignant, bereaving tribute to a dead pet with “Goodbye Mr. Blue.” Glen Campbell woulda’ done wonders with that song.

Misty closed the main set with the title cut of last year’s album Mahashmahashana, an epic (and twisted) twist, almost Flaming Lips–y in its way, on the sweeping arena ballad format. The title cut trend continued with the evening’s finale during encores, the title cut of his 2015 album, I Love You, Honeybear. With this, he demonstrated that, of all the things he is, Misty is also a romantic — beneath the party bluster and fluid irony.