On a very warm Saturday night, modern day musical genius Father John Misty took to the Guild of Students (Mountford Hall) stage and Editor-in-chief Jack Cinnamond was there to catch every second. 

Father John Misty is a current day enigma of music, formally the drummer for Fleet Foxes, Father John has taken to the world with a sense of insecurity and satire that many wish they had. He uses his personal life and his musicianship to form some of the best music in recent years, namely his latest album I Love You, Honeybear (Bella Union, 2015) which was critically acclaimed by almost all critics, it seemed right that somebody would bring him to Liverpool to preform one of these days, and Harvest Sun accomplished it.

On that note, I read a piece with Harvest Sun‘s promoters five odd years ago in-which they said one of the acts they’d love to bring into Liverpool was Fleet Foxes, so tonight must’ve been wonderful.

Ireland native act Bleeding Heart Pigeons opened the show bringing their style of experimental pop to the table,  which sadly didn’t seem to get with the incoming audience. Their final song of the set gained good feedback, however against the crowd reactions, the band’s performance was quite strong. Hopefully we get Bleeding Heart Pigeons on a local stage again sometime soon.

At around 9:15pm, the lights dimmed and the tightly packed audience roared for Father John Misty as the charismatic figure took stage in Mountford Hall. The early part of Misty‘s set was primarily Fear Fun (Bella Union, 2012) songs, which wasn’t a bad thing to hear, yet songs like “Everyman Needs a Companion”, “Hollywood Cemetery Forever Sings” didn’t seem to allow Misty to get into his regular self. He seemed tired, a little worn out and just sadly didn’t connect with the crowd, mainly stuck behind his microphone. It wasn’t until “When You’re Smiling and Astride Me” that we first caught our glimpse of the self-created image of Father John Misty when he threw his guitar to his roadie and began dancing about in his usual manner.

The crowd purely connected when Misty went into latest album standout “Chataeu Lobby #4 (In C Minor for Two Virgins)” was preformed.The first bulk of songs were debut album tracks and it was very obvious the audience was more into the I Love You, Honeybear material.

Highlight of the set came when Misty preformed a duo of piano led ballad, “Bored In The USA” which saw the crowd sing-a-long with the laughter heard in the studio track and acoustic track “Holy Shit” which included a massive hard breakdown of lights and full band explosion.

Early part of his set Misty failed to get moving as his usual self, while that didn’t seem like an issue post “When You’re Smiling and Astride Me” and songs like “I’m Writing a Novel” and the electronic light-filled song “True Affection” certainly pulled him further to the modern iconic figure most know.

The final two songs of his standard set saw Father John preform “I Love You, Honeybear” which had the crowd’s hands raised throughout and into the satirical-honest “The Ideal Husband” which both proved to be crowd favourites. Misty returned to preform “I Went To The Store One Day” as his encore.

*Featured image courtesy of @penniepenniepen on Twitter.