NEWS

News of blue-eyed soul singer Bobby Caldwell’s death this morning was met by an outpouring of loving — and befuddled — messages online. While the former stemmed from the love audiences have for the lauded singer’s long-lasting hits like “What You Won’t Do For Love,” the latter were echoes of a semi-annual occurrence in which longtime listeners learned his ethnic background — a phenomenon of which the man himself never seemed to tire.

Then, there were the more personal messages. Chance The Rapper offered one of those on Instagram, fondly recalling a time the singer reached out to thank him for sampling one of his songs. Caldwell, who was an active Twitter user and enjoyed responding to messages from fans astonished to discover that he wasn’t Black, graciously told Chance that he’d be “honored” if Chance sampled the song.

Chance himself commented on how rare of an occurrence this is in the caption, writing, “This never happens. I’ve never received a message from an artist thanking me for sampling their record. This is a record that hasn’t even come out, and the legend himself reached out. I was so excited to meet you, I have not felt broken like this at a strangers passing in so long. You are a true legend and incredible person who I know I will see one day.

“It’s clear this theater isn’t used to rock concerts,” Nick Jonas roared from the stage. “The spotlights can’t hit us because you’re all standing.”

He was right: Broadway’s Marquis Theater, which has housed acclaimed but not quite foot-stomping, hip-shaking productions of musicals like “Tootsie” and “Beetlejuice,” isn’t accustomed to two hours of 1,600 jumping, screaming fans. Yet the venue’s infrastructure will be put to the test during the Jonas Brothers’ five-night residency from March 14-18. (We ask this with love: Can the mezzanine support five nights of bouncing concert-goers?)

Photo: Cole Gentry
Night one of the limited engagement — wherein each show focuses on one album, in order of release — took the audience all the way back to the aughts with their 2007 self-titled album “Jonas Brothers” and successfully kicked off the week of performances. The residency continues through Saturday with “A Little Bit Longer” (2008), “Lines, Vines, and Trying Times” (2009) and “Happiness Begins (2019)” before culminating with the first live performance of the band’s newest album, “The Album,” which dropped May 12.

On that note, “We are obviously not good at coming up with [album] names,” Joe Jonas joked after the trio tore through some of their earliest hits, “S.O.S.” and “Hold on.” And although it’s been more than 15 years since Nick, Kevin and Joe revisited some of the songs that turned them into superstars, there were only two tells: Their pants were a little looser, and their voices are a lot stronger.

Photo: Cole Gentry
They brought a rock swagger to Broadway, keeping the crowd on their feet for the entirety of the show — minus the 15-minute intermission (it’s on Broadway, after all) — as they launched into “That’s Just the Way We Roll,” “Hello Beautiful” and “Australia.” But whether they were playing a pop anthem or a ballad, the crowd’s energy never wavered: That’s in part because, if you haven’t heard the JoBros early discography in a while, a surprising number of tracks encourage the audience to clap along. And of their six albums, “Jonas Brothers” arguable has the most recognizable songs, so the audience needed no invitation to lose their voice by screaming along to every track.

“Some of these songs, we haven’t played in 13-14 years,” Nick teased, “so if we mess up…”

Kevin finished his younger brother’s thought — “We’re sorry.”

But if there were mistakes, they were obscured by the memories that the songs, mostly about young love and first kisses, brought back for the audience and brothers alike. The show was filled with charming anecdotes about where and when the three wrote the album’s songs, and kicked off with a dramatic reading by other three actors from the group’s unreleased memoir, “The Book.”

“We’re going to take you through our journey,” Nick promised, “which you are all very much a part of.”

It’s not entirely clear why the brothers opted to perform this series on Broadway, when they certainly could have sold out bigger venues on consecutive nights — “This is very intimate space for a Jonas Brothers show,” Joe observed. “It feels quite nice.” — But the coziness proved a treat to the fans, allowing the trio to banter with the crowd, and each other, and experiment vocally in ways that may not have worked in larger rooms. “I just love your voice,” Joe offered to Nick after he took some well-received creative liberties on the ballad “Hello Beautiful.”

Photo: Cynthia Parkhurst
Cynthia Parkhurst
For Nick, the night marked a homecoming of sorts because he previously performed in “Annie Get Your Gun” at the Marquis Theatre with Reba McEntire in 2001. For Joe, it was a return to the stage for the first time since 2002’s “La Boheme.” And for Kevin, the evening served as his Broadway debut.

“You’re doing great so far,” Joe assured him.

“Thanks,” Kevin said to roaring applause. “I’m nervous.”

Inevitably, the evening was largely about nostalgia — although there was a comically anachronistic moment when, before the intermission, Nick encouraged the audience to “get drunk” — something he certainly couldn’t have condoned in 2007 to their almost entirely teenage fanbase. And for the closer, the group shifted into the present by playing newer hits like “What a Man Gotta Do,” “Jealous” and “Sucker” — and geared up for four more nights of rocking down memory lane.

My Morning Jacket are continuing to tour behind their 2021 self-titled album. The next set of shows begins in May and extends into August. Along the way, the band will perform at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, Madrid, and Portugal, as well as at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre. My Morning Jacket also has a few dates with Fleet Foxes. See the band’s tour dates below.

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My Morning Jacket:

05-14 Mobile, AL – Saenger Theatre
05-15 Jackson, MS – Thalia Mara Hall
05-20 Guadalajara, Mexico – Corona Capital Guadalajara
05-30 London, England – O2 Kentish Town Forum
05-31 Manchester, England – O2 Ritz Manchester
06-03 Barcelona, Spain – Primavera Sound Barcelona
06-05 Antwerp, Belgium – De Roma
06-06 Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg
06-09 Porto, Portugal – Primavera Sound Porto
06-10 Madrid, Spain – Primavera Sound Madrid
06-15 St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre
06-16 Charleston, SC – Firefly Distillery
06-17 Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
06-20 Saint Paul, MN – Palace Theatre
06-21 Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater
06-23 Indianapolis, IN – TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
06-24 Newport, KY – MegaCorp Pavilion
06-26 Lewiston, NY – Artpark Amphitheater
06-28 Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
06-30 New Haven, CT – Westville Music Bowl
07-01 Scranton, PA – Peach Music Festival
07-29 Washington, D.C. – The Anthem
07-30 Floyd, VA – FloydFest
08-15 Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield
08-16 Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
08-18 Berkeley, CA – Greek Theatre †
08-19 Berkeley, CA – Greek Theatre †
08-20 Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl †
08-22 San Diego, CA – CalCoast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
08-23 Mesa, AZ – Mesa Amphitheatre
08-25 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
08-26 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre

† w/ Fleet Foxes

Curated and produced by James Acaster, the 40-strong international music collective known as Temps has shared the latest single and music video from their forthcoming debut album PARTY GATOR PURGATORY with the release of “partygatorresurrection.” Born out of a scrapped mockumentary that would’ve staged his segue from comedian to musician, Acaster spent the pandemic roping some of his favorite artists (whose emailed addresses he still had thanks to interviews he’d done for a book and podcast on modern music) into the mix. What emerged was Temps — a collective borne out of remote collaboration and a shared desire for experimentation, one unfettered by genre or any other categorical hangups and driven solely by freeform creation.

Their features on their latest single (along with every song on the album) reads like a roll call: Open Mike Eagle, me oh myriorama, Montaigne, Low Growl, and bb tombo all contributed in some way to the track. A scattered medley of drums fill the background scenery of “partygatorresurrection,” where a gauzy mix of vocals soar with rapt eccentricity just before dropping into a tizzy of gruffly delivered bars. Sonically the track feels stripped-down, giving focus to the arrival of every new instrumental or vocal exchange that crops up sublimely throughout.

Clocking at just over five minutes “partygatorresurrection” is just that: a constant revival of sound and melody. At around the three minute mark the whole track shifts — a baritone voice repeating the phrase “A surprise birthday party” in different variations — as the drum solo is joined by twinkling tones and a sizzling guitar that starts pumping out some delectable riffs. Like previous releases “bleedthemtoxins” (feat. Joana Gomila, NNAMDÏ, Shamir, Quelle Chris) and “no,no” (feat. Quelle Chris, Xenia Rubinos, NNAMDÏ, Shamir) the music of Temps is defined by its dedication to creating soundscapes that appear to unfold spontaneously with vibrant kineticism.

The music video for “partygatorresurrection” also features the veritable mascot and spiritual center for the collective’s debut: an oversized and neon hued alligator. Worn as a costume by Acaster (originally he’d owned an actual human-sized plush alligator he’d won at a fair when he was 7-years-old, but it was lost after he donated it to a school) the music video sees the titular party gator having a row on a lake and wandering around the docks. Before it switches to a no less bonkers scene in which a person in a purple robes and a turtle mask is dancing around a statue at the center of a picturesque garden. Be sure to follow the rest of the documented adventures of party gator via Temps’ other music videos for “no,no” and “bleedthemtoxins.”