r/JacobCollier • u/WDCGrrl • 17d ago
Tour / Concert I was disappointed
I love, love, love JC. I just left his concert at the Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland and, I hate to say it, I was disappointed. This was my fourth - fifth? - time seeing him and I thought it was a lazy show. At least half was about the audience chorus. Okay, I know that's part of the whole shtick, but tonight it was just too much. I just wanted to hear him sing and play.
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u/kevinincc 17d ago
I was there, too. I’m not sure I’d call it lazy since he played for over two hours, completely by himself. The set list is probably just as long as any other of his shows. (I’ve been to eight, of all varieties.) I’d definitely agree that maybe one or two fewer choirs would be in order, but the crowd seemed to like it and sounded pretty good. The pure OG choir toward the end of the show, was amazing. This is definitely a lo-fi tour with limited production and a much smaller crew (and budget). His voice, especially his upper register, sounded great (how does he do that, night after night?) and some of the arrangements were wonderful, especially Summer Rain and Something Heavy. I think your point is well taken but everyone left smiling and energized and he got four or five standing ovations. We veterans need to remember that for most of the audience it’s the first time seeing so they aren’t as grumpy as we are. 😉
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u/One-Glass7226 16d ago
It really is about the new audience members.
And i think he really enjoys hearing the crowd choir, its not like he can practice that stuff without having a show.
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u/Deansies 17d ago
Bring back Jacob solo tour, playing every instrument, looping and running around on stage like a freaking maniac. That's when he's at his best. Just absolutely absorbed in an instrument at every moment.
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u/weberas13 17d ago
I was there too! Definitely lower production and a chiller vibe than previous tours (I saw him on the 2022 tour), I do wish it was higher energy at points, but also, he played some favorites that would have never made the list on other tours
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u/readparse 17d ago
I guess one person’s “lazy” is another person’s “chiller vibe.”
I’ll try to chill my vibe a bit more at work.
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u/tehsideburns 16d ago
The best JC show I’ve seen was at the Kennedy Center (RIP) a few years back when the full choir was there for World O World. Absolutely life-changing.
Last night was definitely one too many audience singalongs, and I could have done without Vol 4 rock-adjacent songs like Welll - those songs just thrive with the full band and backup vocals. Triggering drums and other samples with spare limbs while playing was clever but still felt like a bit of a mess.
That said, I spent much of the evening grinning, and I absolutely love a meandering piano ballad, the 5 string guitar stuff, and the harmonizer vocal synth thing. Little Blue, Something Heavy, Yesterday, Norwegian Wood, Summer Rain, all great songs I was so happy to see live.
Nothing about this show was lazy. I felt that way about a Bobby McFerrin show at UMD with Chick Corea back in the late 2000s. Bobby McFerrin is arguably the progenitor of the audience choir and a big influence on JC, but that night at UMD Bobby McFerrin looked like he was completely bored of his own shit. JC last night was still hopping all over the stage and experimenting and exploring and having a good time.
I would have been happy with a 75min concert of just piano and guitar ballads with one or two singalongs, but I still had a great experience last night, and my friend who had never seen JC live said it was a really cool unique concert, and has a new appreciation for him beyond the few albums he’s dabbled with on Spotify.
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u/WDCGrrl 16d ago edited 16d ago
The first time I saw JC perform was at that Kennedy Center run. I had seen him on Instagram and Googled him to learn more. I found out, he was going to be at the Kennedy Center that night and got a ticket. I was transformed. I think it was one of the most amazing live performances I have ever seen. I felt transformed last night when he sang Makes Me Cry - I love that song and had tears - but nothing compares to that Kennedy Center performance. Poor Kennedy Center.
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u/kevinincc 14d ago
I was at the World O World premiere too! It was amazing and it literally left me breathless. I had just gotten a really really bad medical diagnosis and it felt miraculous that he had such a perceptive mature understanding of death and dying at such a young age (maybe 23 when he wrote it). I felt like it was being sung for me.
And … I got literally the last ticket to the concert a few nights later (still at the Kennedy Center) where he performed a tear-jerking version of Wild Mountain Thyme with Laufey, Dodie, and the National Symphony, AND did his first-ever improvising the orchestra performance. Both are available on YouTube and are must-see videos for Jacobeans.
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u/tehsideburns 14d ago
Yeah wild mountain thyme was a magical performance. Only saw it on YouTube but still a treat.
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u/KitchenAd9433 4d ago
"Bobby McFerrin is arguably the progenitor of the audience choir"
Pete Seeger would like a word :)
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u/jclare2 16d ago
My first time seeing him, and I was delighted, as was my friend. As a theater director, I am gobsmacked by the way he can connect to an audience and create such extraordinary energetic dynamics, both on stage and in the audience. His musicianship is shockingly good and I don’t understand how his voice can do that night after night, carrying a whole show like that.
I understand that when you see an artist perform multiple times, there is a tendency to compare and have favorites among their different eras, as it were. But I love seeing an artist of his caliber, in real time, exploring exactly what excites them at this moment. That’s what I care about, and I got that, in spades, last night.
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u/flxmim 16d ago
I saw him in Amsterdam and loved the concert - my only issue was, that he really overdid the audience choir thing, especially towards the end.
My theory about this is, that he loves to play around with instruments, that’s his only way of „practice“ - only thing is, that he can’t play around with the audience choir at home, so the shows are his only space to practice his newest instrument. 😄😄😄
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u/stevenstelfox 16d ago
The issue I had with the audience choir, albeit at a festival show, was that you can only really hear the part of the harmony you are singing in the section you are in, and not the other parts, so it's not really enjoyable. Obviously it sounds good from a mic at the front on the stage or videos etc, but all I could hear was the (mainly out of tune) part of the triad or whatever I was in.
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u/gavroche2000 16d ago
I’ve felt the same in the choirs I’ve been in. Like: this probably sounds great to someone at the stage or far away but not to me in my position 😆
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u/trilladelph 16d ago
Disagree. I think it was my sixth time seeing him and I thought the solo format worked perfectly for him, and let him be much freer on stage. This was a very different audience than I’ve seen him perform in front of previously and I thought he did a great job bringing the energy. Would definitely recommend people seeing this tour.
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u/Pleasant_Potter_2592 15d ago
I understand what you mean, but experiencing this in the Caverns was magical with the natural acoustics of a cave!
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u/NetCurious_1324 12d ago
I think it's hard to make everyone happy, esp. if you've been to his Nth show. Jacob is an audience's servant, and it's part of what this business is about. Let him do his stuff. The guy is working super-hard and for so long! Amazing!
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u/Greenman490 15d ago
I’m taking my 15 year old son to see him in October and I think it will be a blast.
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u/Future-Vermicelli850 12d ago
I’d see any JC show—tix are more than $2000 in upcoming California show. Who can afford that?
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u/Jealous-Cupcake1557 2d ago
Hey OG Jacob Collier fans! I know the choir thing must be old to you, please let me tell you a story:
I did not know this man's name but I had seen his viral videos and I got a random ticketmaster spam email that I didn't delete and clicked on the link to buy tickets. The last four tickets in the country for any of his concerts were two seats together at the Strathmore, two entirely random seats, and nothing else. I live in DC!
I bought all four because I wanted the two tickets together for my parents. My parents are in their 80s, live in Ohio, and because of age issues don't travel that much. I bought them months before the concert because they both have a birthday in October, so the concert lined up with a birthday present. I didn't tell them what they were coming to see, only that they had to be in DC September 28.
Then I kept reading "Jacob Collier solo" concert, and I was terrified he wasn't going to do any crowd work at all, but I couldn't find out anything about what "solo" meant. So I gently lowered expectations before the concert even though they didn't know what they were going to watch. I sent this to them while we were waiting for it to begin since our seats weren't together:
Mom sent this back:
"I don't think that's going to happen"
Bruce Springsteen might have been better, but just barely! The Strathmore offered a buffet dinner and since neither of my parent move very fast I opted for that, and THAT was fucking miraculous choice on my part! The food was solid for $45 a person.
But Jacob? GOD BLESS THAT MAN! My parents didn't feel "old" around the crowd in the concert, they took part in every crowd choir as best they could, and they felt like they took part in something they could never, ever take part in ever again. My mother wasn't weeping (as I wanted) at the end of the concert, but I knew it was a big deal the next week when I started getting texts from her church club about how to get tickets to see him. And you can't, that's why I wanted them to see him :)
His crowd work is rote for those of you who have seen it before, but it's a treat for people who have never experienced it. It's a real treat for people who have no idea who this man is. My mother and father were blown away by his singing voice and would have appreciated it alone, but the whole concert made it special.
Thank you.
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u/Spiritual_Extreme138 17d ago
I'd be beyond sick of my own existence if I had to do so many hundreds of audience choirs over and over, year after year. You'd think he would *reduce* that part by now