Alright so I saw Sun Kil Moon on Saturday night. (I left my cousin’s wedding to go - is that bad? To be fair to me I bought the ticket before the wedding date was announced.) It was at the Athenaeum Theatre, a seated venue that houses about 1000 or something, so it was pretty perfect for him. He started at 830 on the dot, I was a fraction late, he was already into Send in the Clowns. I’d post a setlist but there is none online, and to be honest it would be kind of difficult to list... about 10-15 minutes in he started speaking to the crowd and yeah, he is fucking hilarious. Nandos (chicken joint) asked him to write a jingle. “I can’t write jingles, but I can write 10-minute songs so I’ll take your $100,00” and he actually fucking played this song he had written, which was extremely hilarious. It was basically about some hot young girl he had seen last time he was in Australia and how he gave her his hotel room details and he wanted to fuck her but it didn’t happen. The song kept coming back to the line “she ate Nandos chicken / nandos chicken” etc and then it had a bit about how he wanted to “punch that fucking Gotye idiot in the head”. Like it was five or six minutes long and the whole crowd was in tears of laughter. He had several digs at Australia, how we don’t have a recognisable cultural dish of our own. “Sell me on Australia!” he said. I yelled out “we love the MCG!” and he said “you love MSG?” and the whole crowd laughed haha. He also talked about how Brisbane was in his top three worst places he’d ever been, and how he hated Jet - “War on Drugs can suck my cock, Jet can suck my cock twice”.
Other hilarious moments included him talking about his drummer’s girlfriend used to fuck the drummer of Train, how he once dated an Asian girl who fucked the singer who replaced the original singer of Foreigner, several rants about the War on Drugs (and yes, he played War on Drugs Suck My Cock in full in all its glory, including some bloke he pulled up from the crowd to play the tom-tom), and so many others.
As for the actual show itself, it was great. He didn’t play Ben’s My Friend (my favourite song) but it looks like he’s never played it, which is weird. Also no Duk Koo Kim, was hoping to sit there in bliss listening to that riff for 10 minutes but alas. But he played most of the rest of Benji. Micheline was played sans guitar and it was heavier and darker. Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love was just gorgeous, Kozelek shuffling around on stage with his non-mic hand in his pocket. I Watched the Film The Song Remains The Same was quite stunning, Kozelek sitting off to the left strumming his guitar. I was sitting with my head lying back on the chair, it ended up feeling like a dream, it was so so nice. When he introduced Jim Wise he actually broke down in tears, I never quite realised how sad that song was. The Possum was also a stunning moment. The gig went for three hours and the last half an hour it probably overstayed its welcome a bit. Kozelek decided he wanted to keep singing and the last few songs were all of a similar, slow, keys-led no-guitar vein, and though they were all really nice (one about ceiling-gazing in particular) it did test my patience a fraction. Still Kozelek was funny, “if you wanna leave go I don’t give a shit”. More talk about the War on Drugs. He finished with an early ACDC song.
So yeah, a really great, memorable show. Very unique. He was really appreciative of the crowd, who were silent during songs but cheered and clapped and engaged with enthusiasm in between songs. His stage presence is very interesting, he spends a lot of time in that very low monotone voice of his, tunes his guitar, stands in one spot signing with his hand in his pocket, from the sound of it it would seem boring but he pulls it off and it adds to the show. Great stuff. Anyone else seen him lately?