Bless you, Jonathan Richman. The legendary singer-songwriter has been a force of good and wide-eyed whimsy since the early 1970s, back when he was with The Modern Lovers. These days, his acoustic shows (usually with drummer Tommy Larkins) are welcome escapes from a world of noise and chaos. He was in There’s Something About Mary. We once interviewed him via fax. He and Larkins are set to play the Marcus Performing Arts Center on Sunday, October 8.
“The music we’re doing now works well in quiet places like theaters and performing art centers,” Richman says in a statement. “We still don’t use a program or a set list so we don’t know what we’ll do until we do it. Please do not expect old songs. Many singers my age do a retrospective; this show is not like that. It’s mostly stuff made up in the last 3 and 4 years. Some of the songs presented might be in different languages; this is not to be esoteric or clever, it’s because the different languages help me express different feelings sometimes.”
Reserved-seating tickets to the 7:30 p.m. show are $38.50, and are on sale NOW.
“One last thing,” Richman’s statement concludes, “my idea of a good show has nothing to do with applause. It’s about if all the songs I sang that night were ones that I felt.”
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