Man Man at Terminal West, Atlanta, July 18, 2019

Before last night, we had seen the oddball Philly band Man Man once before. At the urging of an acquaintance, we caught their set at the 2014 edition of Atlanta's Shaky Knees festival. the year it was held at the misbegotten Atlantic Station. We remembered that we really enjoyed the set and thought that it was all madcap fun, but somehow we couldn't recall a single specific thing about it.

We're having the same reaction to last night's show - it was a great, raucous set full of crazy shenanigans and off-the-wall antics, but so much of it was simply so bizarre that each successive WTF moment made you immediately forget the one that had just preceded it.  Which is to say, we've already forgotten about three quarters of what happened on stage last night. 

Before the memories are lost forever we need to start warehousing them now, storing what we can recall before they drift off into the foggy recesses of amnesia.  It's either that or start covering ourselves with tattoos like the protagonist of Memento.

Here's what we do remember about last night:

• During only the second song of the set, the band stopped playing instruments and literally were just screaming at the audience, who were screaming right back at the band.
• Front man Honus Honus bleating like a goat and encouraging the audience to bleat along, which we did.
• Band and audience all holding their keys aloft and jangling them.
• Honus using a bullhorn with a spotlight to showcase the absurd dancing of the sax player.
• Honus holding up a portrait of Iggy Pop while singing something about having to find our own inner Iggy.
• A totally unironic and heartfelt rendition of their popular song Hold On, with pop-singing opener Rebecca Black belting out a guest verse.

If Hold On sounds familiar to you, HBO used it for the Season 1 trailer of their Sarah Jessica Parker/Thomas Haden Church comedy series, Divorce. 

• Honus holding a plastic skeleton aloft over the audience's head only to toss it into the throng to allow it to "crowd surf" and having it come back in several pieces. 
• The word "butthole" taped in small type to Honus' electric piano.
• The number 666 painted on a statue of an owl in invisible ink that could only be seen when illuminated by black light. 
• During one song and one song only, Honus wearing a long coat with something written on the back of it about a neighbor's wife getting eaten by an alligator or something, sort of like Melania's "I really don't care, do you?" coat, but the quote was too long and Honus was moving around too much for us to ever read the whole thing.
• A gradual person-by-person exit from the stage to close the encore, which our sharp-eared musicologist friend says was reminiscent of Haydn's Farewell Symphony.

But despite the catalog above, the set wasn't merely a series of madcap skits and high-jinks.  Musically, Man Man plays driving piano-centric, woozily psychedelic pop-rock, with as many as three horns backing Honus Honus' gruff vocals.  It brought to mind at times everyone from Dr. John to Frank Zappa to Captain Beefheart to Leon Russell, with many, many points in between.  And as anarchic and outrageous as things got at times, much of the songwriting was pleasingly accessible and enjoyable - these would have been great songs even without all the on-stage madness.

 

The audience, needless to say, was enthralled, and Honus worked us into a frenzy.  We're normally somewhat restrained at shows, but last night's set had us dancing in place, jumping up and down, and hollering aloud.  We were at the very front of the stage and at one point Honus knelt down in front of us and sang a verse while cradling our face with one hand and looking directly into our eyes.  Earlier, he playfully tapped our sharp-eared musicologist friend on the head with a drumstick. But we weren't being singled out - he somehow interacted in one way or another with everyone he could possibly reach.

For the record, Man Man is touring as a sextet, with Honus and the drummer out in front of four multi-instrumentalists taking turns on bass, guitar, reeds, brass, percussion, backing vocals, and choreography. 

It was another fun night with Man Man, we'll remember that much.  It's probably the best show we won't remember.