You know you've finally found your way to the club when you see the headline act wandering around in the street.
The Wife was a bit queasy as we turned the corner onto Elbow Street last night in Providence. She didn't want to park the car on the street — not with that wild-eyed dude in the jean jacket lurking around. I looked the guy over, just to see what he was up to.
"Wife," I concluded, "that's Jonathan Richman."
And so it was. Ten minutes later he would fish his guitar out of the trunk of his beat-up diesel Mercedes Benz (California plates), walk inside, climb the stage, and plug in. It took some coaxing to bring the assembled crowd of about fifty off its barstools toward the stage: "So I saw on the Nature Channel this special about a monitor lizard or Komodo dragon or something, and its mouth is so filthy that if it bites you, you get sick and die. Well, if I bite you," said Jonathan, "you'll just get sick. So why don't you come up here a little closer?"
Backed by drummer Tommy Larkins, Jonathan eschewed all his old Modern Lovers material in favor of newer compositions, most notably "Let Her Go into the Darkness," "Nineteen in Naples," "Springtime in New York," "Her Mystery Not of High Heels or Eye Shadow," and "Con el Merengue." We've seen Jonathan perform about five times now. The
schtick remains the same, which is why we keep going: the frenetic guitar-strumming, the mid-lyric asides, the sheer joy with which he plays — never more apparent than when, so overcome by himself, he takes the guitar off his shoulder and begins to dance.
I can't say our man was in peak form last night; more than anything, the intimacy of the club made this show memorable. Crowds gathered around outside and watched through the windows. Larkins cracked a smile once or twice as fans chanted his name during drum solos. After the show ended with "Surrender" — every time she hears this song, the Wife pulls me aside and says, "Every lyric in that song is right" — Jonathan packed up his guitar, took a seat on the stage, and exchanged greetings with the crowd.
Within the hour, presumably, he had his guitar back in the car and was
on the road, to Washington, Youngstown, Oberlin, Indy, Dayton, and on into the Great Plains. That's Jonathan Richman at age 52: an itinerant musician who plays $10 gigs and is too easily mistaken as a car thief. Oh, and a brilliant, ebullient songwriter who delivers pure joy wherever he goes. Who wouldn't want to be him?
