Newsletter Signup
Stay up to date on all the latest news from Boston.com
Review & setlist: Jon Batiste spreads the joy at boisterous Boston show
The former Colbert bandleader presided over a celebratory singalong at the Orpheum Saturday.
Jon Batiste at the Orpheum, Saturday
“I feel good, I feel free, I feel fine just being me, I feel good today.” Those are the first words that Jon Batiste sang Saturday at the Orpheum, and they’re pretty easy to say when you’re Batiste.
He came to national prominence by being beamed into millions of homes every night as the bandleader of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” and he’s won an Oscar and five Grammys, including Album Of The Year for 2021’s “We Are.” He’s a musical polymath and he sold out the Orpheum. It’s tempting to say that he’s riding an incredible hot streak, but streaks end. It’s possible that this is just what being Batiste is. No wonder he’s in a good mood.
Advertisement:
Then again, it’s possible that all of the above accomplishments are irrelevant, because to watch him perform is to get the sense that there’s no one who derives as much pure joy from making music as Jon Batiste. He came out beaming and dancing, and every song had the explicit or implicit aim of spreading sunshine. (Literally, in the case of the easygoing lope of “On The Sunny Side Of The Street,” where the off-kilter cowbell clonks gave it the feel of a lazy horse.)
Even when a song acknowledged darkness — like “Raindance,” which shifted from soft, edgeless keyboard chords and a quote from Alphaville’s “Forever Young” to reggae fitted out with a burbling bassline with echoes of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” — it was purely as the thing that was behind him. It hardly seemed surprising when he eventually busted out a New Orleans gospel-funkified “If You’re Happy And You Know It.”
Advertisement:
The band left room in that one for the crowd to clap their hands and stomp their feet, of course, and over and over Batiste made it his mission not just to experience joy himself or even celebrate it, but to share it and use it to inspire his audience like a preacher leading services. His rolling, percussive piano instrumental “Kenner Boogie” was rousing enough on its own before he had the crowd clap along (on the all-important 2 and 4 beats, a feat of wizardry all its own).
The audience similarly clapped and sang a wordless chant on the nearly post-rock swells of “Worship,” and when they started drifting, Batiste jumped back in on the vocals to gently pull them back to the beat. And the soft “oh”s and phone lights illuminating the theatre during the light drum taps and quiet synth bass of “Butterfly” gave it the somber grace of church.
MORE REVIEWS:
But even as he involved the crowd as much as he could, it was hard to deny that Batiste is built different from you and me. He hopped on multiple instruments throughout the night, from his beloved melodica that peppered the songs by default, to the electric guitar he wielded on the driving soul-rock of “Tell The Truth,” to the saxophone he blew as backing singer Desiree Washington tore the house down with “Night Time Is The Right Time.” And left alone onstage with his piano, he swept uninterrupted through an eclectic array of songs, from a gentle but busy barrelhouse version of Sam Cooke’s “Bring It On Home To Me” to Taylor Swift’s “Sweet Nothing,” and the Willy Wonka theme “Pure Imagination,” with a dollop or two of classical music in between to seal the deal.
Advertisement:
At 9:45, 80 minutes after taking the stage, Batiste expressed the lone, small worry he had in him all night. “I know we got the curfew,” he said. “We’re just gonna keep playing ’til they cut us off.”
From then on, as each song finished — including two versions of “I Need You,” one happy gospel with a New Orleans flair and another that led into a dancing, heavy jazz interpretation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” — he’d turn to the wings and ask an unseen someone “One more?” until he and his band wound their way through the audience singing and playing his feel-good theme song “I’m From Kenner” until they wound up on the balcony. They ended with “You Are My Sunshine.” It was a singalong.
Setlist for Jon Batiste at the Orpheum, March 16, 2024
- I’m From Kenner
- On The Sunny Side Of The Street (Ted Lewis cover)
- Kenner Boogie
- Tell The Truth
- Freedom
- Hello, Billy Bob
- Raindance
- Worship
- Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke cover)
- Blueberry Hill (Sammy Kaye/Fats Domino cover)
- Sweet Nothing (Taylor Swift cover)
- Pure Imagination (Gene Wilder cover)
- Butterfly
- If You’re Happy And You Know It
- When The Saints Go Marching In
- I Need You
- Night Time Is The Right Time ( (Nappy Brown/Ray Charles cover)
- I Need You (reprise)
- The Star-Spangled Banner
- I’m From Kenner (reprise)
- You Are My Sunshine (The Pine Ridge Boys cover)
Marc Hirsh can be reached at [email protected] or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com