Most touring musicians are probably used to coming out on stage and being greeted with a sea of zombified faces gazing into the dim, blue glow of their smartphones instead of the band or artist that they paid money to see.
It’s just par for the course these days and as far as many punters seem to be concerned, if there ain’t pics, it didn’t happen. But folk singer-songwriter Father John Misty has had enough and he’s ready to start the revolution the only way he knows how – by trolling.
We’ve already spoken about how Father John Misty, real name Joshua Tillman, is officially the greatest troll in music, after he basically trolled all of the world’s music media with a made-up story about seeing the ghost of Lou Reed.
“I was annoyed at the media,” he said at the time. “I was like, ‘These people will print anything’, so I went and gave them the most fraudulent, the most blatantly absurd, unprintable piece of surrealistic nonsense – and they printed it!”
Now, Tillman has taken on the smartphone scourge using the same tactics. As The Brag reports, when a fan in the front row of the singer’s Meredith sideshow at the Sydney Opera House last night whipped out his phone, Tillman trolled him into oblivion.
As Tillman reached the final chorus of his song ‘Bored In The USA’, the singer spotted the phone-wielding fan near the front of the stage, reached out, and grabbed the phone, proceeding to film himself for the rest of the song.
After bringing the song to a close, Tillman joked in his characteristically deadpan style, “I don’t think we got that.” Deciding the take wasn’t up to his directorial standards, Tillman decided the band would have to play the song all over again.
Tillman instructed his band to start the song again so that he could get a better shot. “This will only take four-and-a-half minutes,” he told the crowd, but he reportedly couldn’t get past the first lyric without laughing.
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As he handed the phone back to the red-faced punter, Tillman said, “There – it’s just like you were almost here.” After the gig came to a close, Tillman decided to return to the stage for an impromptu Q&A session that basically amounted to a stand-up set (see below).
If you needed any more proof that Father John Misty is one of the funniest men in contemporary alternative music, check out this 2012 conversation with Chart Attack, which features an unforgettable interaction with an interviewing-crashing homeless woman.
Image by Bryan Parker
