The John Doe Thing, Jonah's Onelinedrawing & Matt Nathanson

I’m really sorry for you if you missed the show at Mr. Lucky’s last Friday. Filled with many pleasant surprises, the show proved that if you arrive fashionably late, you often miss the best part.

Although off to an ambiguous start, Matt Nathanson’s performance quickly became an up-front and personal adventure into the mind of a quirky singer/songwriter. Without his band, the San Francisco musician launched into a set of songs solo — one about "Al Gore, Religion, and Vaginas," another telling the story of "Eddie Money being abducted by aliens," and a cover by everybody’s favorite Confidence Rock band, Journey. He paused between each song to give a humorous explanation about his next piece, his current state of mind, or to remind us that he was here to "rock our ass off." Alone with his twelve-string acoustic, Nathanson performed heart-felt originals that featured beautiful melodies and well written lyrics that, although personal, could be easily related to anyone in the audience. Just goes to show that you can still rock some ass with only an acoustic guitar.

Next up was Jonah’s Onelinedrawing. Jonah, who many would know as the singer of Sacramento’s emo-core semi-famous Far, played a forty minute set with his young new band. Performing many favorites off of their recent Sketchy EPs #1 and #2, Onelinedrawing gave the audience a powerful set. The sound was beautifully rough, with Jonah’s pleasantly high-pitched voice soaring over his overdriven songs of love and remorse. I usually don’t like it when both guitar players are playing the same model of guitars. Fortunately their matching ESP Telecasters sounded different enough, and created that powerful wall of sound that so many bands would die for. Like Nathanson, Jonah kept a good crowd response by chatting with the audience between songs. Onelinedrawing’s set came to a close with the Sugarcubes’ "Birthday." If Bjork was at the show, I’m sure she would have been very proud.

Now, I’ve been reading a lot about John Doe. Gotta give props out to the man. I mean, he’s a 20^th century renaissance man: a singer/songwriter, actor/poet, and of course, one of the fathers of American punk rock. People like John Doe and Henry Rollins make me proud to consider myself a human, and deserve our utmost respect. Which makes it hard to say that he just wasn’t that great. Don’t get me wrong; he gave the crowd a solid rocking show with virtually no low points. The only problem is, there were also no high points. The songs were good and well performed, but none of them really grabbed me — they all sort of blended together into an hour-long, monotonous set that was full of sound and fury, yet signified little. I know he’s moved on from X, and his style has changed a bit, but God, it was like watching a slightly cooler version of John Cougar Mellencamp. Just plain old Middle American Rock. Now, perhaps I would have thought different if I could hear what he had to say in his songs, but the acoustics in Mr. Lucky aren’t pretty, and John Doe’s singing, although gritty in that good kind of way, was not well enunciated. I could make out very few words through the echo and mid range muffle that otherwise may have helped me tune in to his art. This show really could have used a big screen with his lyrics scrolling behind him so I could have followed. It’s disappointing when you find an artist who has something to say, and you can’t make out a thing. Now I’m sure many people in attendance thought he rocked, but I thought that he was outshined by his openers. During the Onelinedrawing set, Jonah mentioned how privileged he felt playing with John Doe, and said that he had a lot to learn from him. Rule #1: never have better bands open for you unless you want to come off mediocre and passé.

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