I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 1, 2026] Mercury Rev

I hadn’t really thought about seeing The Afghan Whigs.  I liked a few of their early albums, but hadn’t really thought about them much at all once they got back together in 2011.  Two of my friends had raved about the band live, though, so when they announced this show and that it was a 40th anniversary tour (instead of a new album tour) I grabbed a ticket right away.

And I was even more excited that the opener was Mercury Rev.  I really liked their weird first albums but I really loved Deserter’s Songs (from 1998).  Their newer stuff (alright, everything since Deserter’s Songs, I’ve found kind of boring (I admit I haven’t listened to all of it but what I have has been pretty bland).  So I haven’t wanted to see them headline a show.  But seeing them as an opener sounded grand, because surely they’d play at least a few of the songs I loved.

So it’s pretty odd that I literally just realized that I saw them 26 years ago.  I guess the show wasn’t that memorable (although 26 years is  a long time).  I really wish I had a better memory of it because it’s a setlist I would kill for (even if they didn’t play anything from their then two middle albums).

But here they were (I was much closer for this show, to be sure), 26 years later with Jonathan Donohue singing and Grasshopper on guitar as the only continuous members.

What struck me immediately is that in front of the drums which were on the side of the stage, there was a small step and Jonathan climbed up it, creating quite the striking figure as he conducted the drummer.  Donohue was wearing a big hat (that reminded me of the Waterboys for some reason) and a tightly buttoned peacoat with white sleeves (unbuttoned, sticking out of the sleeves of the coat).  It was quite the look and immediately told us that he was an artist.

Now, I haven’t paid much attention to Donohue in the last 25 years, so I was really surprised when he sang… differently.

One of the most notable things about Mercury Rev was Donohue’ voice which soared to the falsetto’d heavens.  But he simply couldn’t reach those high notes.  Indeed, I wasn’t even sure if he was trying to.  He had a completely different delivery that seemed almost like a lounge singer style.  It was quite surprising, but once I got used to it, it wasn’t so bad.

They opened with a deep cut from Deserter’s Songs which I didn’t recognize.  I was really intrigued by Donohue’s conducting of the band–who were really quite amazing.  Drummer Joe Magistro was fantastic.  The only other two musicians were in the back behind some keyboards–Marion Genser and Jesse Chandler.  It’s really hard to know what any of them were doing, but clearly one of them was playing the bass lines while Grasshopper played the solo.

I was super excited when they played Tonite It Shows, though, as I’ve always loved that song.  The next song was a pleasant song from Snowflake Midnight.  Called Butterfly’s Wings, Donohue kept fluttering on stage.  they played a song that I immediately recognized and assumed it was one of theirs.  But in fact, it was a cover of a Traffic song.  A song I know very well from classic rock radio but had no idea was called The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.  They rocked it out really well.

Chandler also played flute and saxophone which was fun and suited the newer songs quite well.   I was hoping that they would dig deep and give us a song from Yerself is Steam, but it seems like a very different entity than they were in the early 90s. A second song from Snowflake (with a lengthy spoken word section) was followed by the only song from their most recent album, Born Horses, which also had a lengthy spoken word section–this one was pretty ponderous–something that I think works better on record than live.  But I have just discovered that nearly all of that new album is spoken rather than sung, so maybe that’s his thing now.

He sang Holes, another favorite song from Deserter’s Songs but it felt like he was having a hard time singing it.  It segued into Opus 40, one of their great songs, which again it felt like Donohue as doing something differently and it almost feels like they should stick with only the newest songs live?

It wasn’t a bad set, per se, and I did enjoy Donohue as a performer, but it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.

⊗ Born Horses (2024)
∞ Snowflake Midnight (2008)
♣ All is Dream (2001)
⇔ Deserter’s Songs (1998)
¥ Yerself is Steam (1991)