Concert Reviews (314)

• October 20, 2026
• Colleen Johnson
• 14
• 0

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A little while back, we headed out to catch the first night of Andrew McMahon’s solo tour, and it was the perfect environment for longtime fans of McMahon in all of his forms. Be it Something Corporate, Jack’s Mannequin, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, highlights from all of his projects were present, and even a brand new track, “Change.” While City Winery Boston may not have been the most conventional place to see McMahon’s electric piano playing come to life, the elder emo’s that filled that room fully embraced a once-in-a-lifetime show. As the room filled up, two women sat down at the table behind us and said something along the lines of “How is this real?”

That night’s show served both as the kick-off of a pretty lengthy run for McMahon as well as the first of two nights that he would be at City Winery in Boston. A venue that he said was something that he was very intentional about picking for the Boston shows, as well as being particular about other venues on the tour that he would be playing. The sightlines, “the sound of martinis being shaken in the back,” and even seeing that one fan at a front table was just a little too short to see him while playing. “Jackie, you’re my project,” McMahon said as someone came over to her chair. “Oh, good, you’re being helped.” She responded, “It’s my dessert,” to which he quickly quipped, “Your dessert is a stool that raises you up.” The interaction continued later in the set, when he picked up his setlist off the stage and went straight to her with it. 

His interaction was on point with the crowd all night, as he said he was clearly working out the kinks of performing some of these older songs. Going through the master list of songs he would potentially want to play during this tour. One of those songs was performed that night, after a fan asked if he was going to be playing anything off the much-loved Jack’s Mannequin album, The Glass Passenger. After that conversation, and when he was getting ready for the show, he was like, “Am I playing anything from The Glass Passenger? Oh no,” and furnished a very appreciated moment with “Hammers and Strings.” One that evoked a huge reaction from the crowd. 

These moments continued throughout the set; each song was prefaced by a story about the song, making for  a very appreciated and worth it,  two-hour performance. Before breaking into the SoCo classic, “ Drunk Girl,” he talked about the girl the song was about, and was a consenting king when he said, “Can we just wait until the morning because I’m in love with you,” and after the lyric, “Could be anybody else,” he stopped for a second, simply saying, “I am sure.” Or as he teased the opening notes of “I’m Ready,” the room seemingly collectively swooned.

My notes from the show are filled with moments like this, remarks he would make, the crowd reaction to certain moments in the set. The sing-alongs were encouraged for moments like the aforementioned “ Drunk Girl,” and the song that finished out his encore with “I Woke Up In A Car”. I spoke with a fellow musician who goes by The Suitcase Junket, who talked about being a solo performer, and the audience is just as much a part of the show. The shared human experience of being at a show in such an intimate setting is something I always enjoy in these settings. Yes, McMahon gets to share stories while performing to crowds ten times the size of Friday night’s show, with his respective Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate tours these last two years, but it definitely hit different at this show. And the crowd screamed along to the lyrics during those SoCo and Jack’s Mannequin performances, but McMahon spoke about how this has been the kind of tour he’s been planning and hoping to do for a while. And that preparation and thought put into it was evident. 

Not only were Something Corporate and Jack’s Mannequin tracks well represented in the set, but there were also the moments for Andrew McMahon and the Wilderness. McMahon said at one point regarding Wilderness, “I thought, oh, maybe I can start a career a third time”. At this point, McMahon brought out his opener, Ivory Layne, for several tracks, and Layne would make her return later in the set as well. McMahon introduced her, saying, “Just one of my favorite people in the world and I’m so glad you’re here.” Layne was one of several creatives that McMahon was around while he was questioning starting something new (à la Wilderness), as well as the beginning tracks off the first album. At this point, they performed the first track the two of them wrote together, with “Dead Man’s Daughter,” as well as the premier performance of a new track for McMahon, with the aforementioned “Change.” Introducing “Change,” McMahon did announce a new album, saying, “I’ve been, not just thinking about a record, I’ve been making a record,” earning a huge round of applause from the crowd. 

As an artist who has steadily been writing music for over twenty years at this point, McMahon still keeps fans on their toes, and the reaction to the one song not already imprinted on everyone’s minds shows that there is a reason why avid fans are still hooked on the words McMahon and company write. He pulled on heartstrings throughout the set with stories pretty much in between every song, and teasing out notes of certain crowd favorites. He spoke before “Halls” about how it came out of a night in Arizona where he invited his ex-girlfriend/now wife to go to Disney World the next day, and the lovely woman who got him to the airport, “Liz Beam.” Not really Liz Beam, but she was working the Jim Beam tent the night his master plan to get to California came together. 

The main thing that really stuck out through the night was the joy that both the crowd and the artist had in this show. It was clearly the first-night jitters at play a bit for McMahon, but the man’s charm and clear joy for still making music and the human connection of it all were clear. It brought me back to the early days of COVID, when McMahon made a clear effort to connect with fans in those dark days. He would do scheduled lives pretty much weekly, if not more often, which would start off with him preparing a cocktail and then playing a handful of tracks at his piano in his own home. And that’s the energy that the gig gave off. When it came to his encore, saying first, “There’s a lot of songs, which one to play, deep breaths,” before breaking into the anthemic “I’m Ready.” The night came to a close with a massive sing-along to the previously spoken-about, “I Woke Up In A Car.” This was prefaced by McMahon asking if anyone had been at the early Palladium shows, and saying something along the lines of, “And I know no one was there,” for when the band had to lift McMahon’s piano up the stairs at the original House of Blues Boston, a teeny venue in Harvard Square that now serves as a restaurant. The show in question was an early aughts Something Corporate show, before jumping into the final track of the night. 

There is so much I could say about the two-hour performance McMahon gave, one that changed the next night I can see, and is sure to be an ever-changing setlist. It’s become a yearly tradition to have McMahon and his bandmates/friends be in town every year for the past few years, and Boston is happy to have them every time. 

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Photos – Andrew McMahon at City Winery in Boston, MA on October 9th: (All photos by John Hutchings)