67: Mac's Milk Part Deux

And Ezra Furman live: a report.

Yay!

I did wind up going to see the Ezra Furman show I was hyping last time, with Marjan, and it was fucking fantastic. There was a big Springsteen feel to a lot of it, which I was not expecting and really enjoyed - anthemic songs about small, mighty people fighting back against soul-crushing machinery, sometimes in the company of angels, pretty often on the open road. I always thought Springsteen could have been a punk if he’d been a little younger. Furman seems to draw from all over the history and breadth of musical traditions, but the band performance was honest Rock. Both Marjan and I thought of Patti Smith watching. The audience was hopping and happy. Songs I hadn’t heard yet have me now excitedly digging into the rest of Furman’s catalogue.

The crowd boasted a lot of gender-non-conforming people, and also a kind of surprising showing of older people (older even than us). A beaming guy my age who was next to us kept exclaiming how great the show was, the band were were; later on, he’d explain that he’d “gotten sick of Classic Rock,” went looking, and found Ezra Furman. “Old guys like us,” he hollered, “say there’s no good new music! But they’re wrong!” I agreed. He was as thrilled as me to be so excited by new music.

I also watched the cutest young pair who may have been at their first show ever by the merch table, picking up each item adoringly and doing happy dances together, talking and talking into each other’s ears. It was adorable. I hope their whole night was that fun.

Furman and her band finished with a set of encores that included a rocking cover of Because the Night, tying it all together nicely.

Thanks for the encouragement, Kirk Carter!

thanks for reading.

xo

jep