Here’s the way nearly every concert you’ve ever been to has gone- It’s Great to Be Here, setlist, banter, encore, Goodnight. It’s a tried-and-true method, which is what makes it all the more shocking when Jason Anderson gets up to play. The first thing you notice is that there’s zero setup time- he doesn’t need a mic, a glass of water, a moment to compose himself. The second thing you notice is that he’s asked you and everyone else to form a giant circle around him. Not a crowd, not even a semi-circle watching him. Just a circle where everyone is really, really close to each other, because the places Jason Anderson plays usually aren’t very big.
Then he starts to sing. He never really does melody- his voice seems to fluctuate between a joyous uprising and a calm tone of concern. He doesn’t sing songs so much as pour out emotion over the everyday facts of life- leaving your hometown, flirting with a girl, losing someone to cancer. He doesn’t want to hyperbolize or filter any of it- better to let it roar out of his skinny Brooklyn-via-New Hampshire frame like a lion fleeing a game reserve for the Sahara. The emotions of his songs don’t hit because of some esoteric reference or clever turn of phrase- they get to you because they are absolutely, one hundred percent sincere, probably more honest then you’ve been with yourself.
The third thing you notice about a Jason Anderson concert is that you’re singing nearly as much as Jason Anderson. He’s smart enough enough to realize the universal nature of songs- they may about about things as specific as having a dream about Fugazi or July 4, 2004, but he brings a commonality out in all of them. He’s also humble enough to get what a universal song really is- one that can, and should, be sung by everyone. He’ll ask you, as one member of a sudden collective to another, to take over a harmony or a verse. It’s hard to say no, simply because it sounds like so much fun. Before you know it, the entire room is singing melodies while Jason simply plays guitar to back you all up.
In fact, calling Jason Anderson a singer seems oddly inappropriate. A singer sings songs at you, telling you the lyrics and giving you the story. To better describe Anderson, you’ve got to reach for a word whose coldness belies what he really is- facilitator. He facilitates an experience so fragile, so communal, so beautiful, that it can only really exist for one night at a time. There’s an immediacy to a Jason Anderson concert, a feeling that you won’t experience a night like this again for a long time, or at least until he comes into town again. He does his best to transmit this feeling of unity, this feeling of joyous living, like a disciple speaking to the hungry. And the crazy thing is that he’s able to do it, all through voice and guitar. Jason Anderson concerts don’t last forever, but life feels a lot happier when you’re there.
-David Grossman
