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12/18/2023

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness with Michigander and Wilderness at Roseland Theater on 12/16/2023 / Photos and review

By CHRISTINA HALL // Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness' penultimate show of the New Friends tour took place at Roseland Theater in Portland, Oregon with presumable friends, Michigander and Wildermess. 

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness' penultimate show of the New Friends tour took place at Roseland Theater in Portland, Oregon with presumable friends, Michigander and Wildermiss. The stage was festive the entire night with a lit-up Christmas tree to stage right. Wildermiss commenced the night with a set radiating different moods throughout. Michigander promptly followed after. A lighter set with the singer engaging playfully with his band and crowd.

The stage was set up for the final set of the night in a summer camp theme. A sound engineer dressed as a camp counselor set the scene and a band member played, not quite Reveille, but with the same effect on the trumpet. To the crowd's surprise, Andrew McMahon entered from the back of the room, led by a man dressed in a bear onesie carrying a lantern.

He sang Nobody Tells You When You’re Young; a song from his latest album released earlier this year, ‘Tilt at the Wind No More.’ He then jumped right into a couple of Jack’s Mannequin songs. McMahon, with a history with Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate has a library of songs to choose from and the aptitude to create an unpredictable setlist each night.

After a few …in the Wilderness songs, Andrew announced that he would play a song he hadn’t played on tour yet, Canyon Moon, closely followed by a deep cut of, Last Straw, AZ, with an intro that the original lyrics were based on a sketch in a notebook of Snoop Dogg and George Bush. A fan was brought on stage as she had won a karaoke contest to sing Bruised with Andrew.

After, the camp counselor announced that the storm was coming and the band members put on ponchos and ran into a tent at the back of the stage. Andrew joked that with his black poncho and bleached hair someone had recently called him Draco from Harry Potter. He continued to sing Rainy Girl bantering with a shadow puppet coming from the tent.

He closed out the main set with Cecilia and the Satellite with the crowd loudly singing along. Andrew came back on stage in a dog onesie and chatted a little about the tour’s namesake song. Joking that it meant he didn’t want to make more friends, but that the tour presented quite the opposite. Wildermiss and Michigander joined the stage to sing along as they threw marshmallows to the crowd. The drummer from Michigander stayed for the final song of the night, La La Lie, since it was his birthday, but wasn’t too keen on the lyrics. Andrew closed out the night crowd surfing on a blown-up llama.

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