“Pretty Bird” - Jenny Lewis Live at Meany Hall ::: courtesy of Youtube user: bebeblu.

… most of them don’t usually involve appearing on stage alone in front of a nearly capacity 1200 seat theater. “I’ve never done this before,” Jenny Lewis confessed last Wednesday to the crowd after playing her first solo song, “Rabbit Fur Coat” all alone on a dark stage. To a cheer of encouraging applause she introduced the next song “It’s A Hit” noting “I wrote this next song about a guy who lost his job in Washington yesterday.” Three cheers for that indeed. Way to start strong.

As we heard on a recent NPR podcast, Lewis has been collaborating quite a bit with her current boyfriend Jonathan Rice, and brought him along to play some of the songs he helped to write on her latest album Acid Tongue. After a few songs alone, Lewis invited Rice out to join on a song he helped write called “Carpetbaggers,” a song that Lewis convinced Elvis Costello to duet with her for the album version. After Lewis noted “Carpetbaggers” was about treacherous women, Rice jokingly asked if it was autobiographical. She only raised an amused eyebrow in answer before launching into the song.

The set list consisted of the complete range of Lewis’ solo material and some covers, yet even with only a couple Rilo Kiley songs in the mix, a larger point of view quickly emerged. Quite a few of the songs chosen for this evening seemed to reflect the experience of conflicted and drama prone women, cougar moms and disaffected daughters and fragile girlfriends alike. Midway through the set Rice and Lewis dueted on the oft covered “Love Hurts,” a song which Lewis referred to in an earlier interview as “a perfect love song.” Right. Somehow that sounds exactly like something she would say. Rice’s jibe had legs.

Not having paid proper attention to Lewis’ latest release, many of the new songs I’d heard only once, and so was pleasantly surprised. She’s really singing with confidence now, and it’s sounding good. Notable songs for me were “Pretty Bird,” “Silver Lining,” and the Rilo Kiley number “You Are What you Love.” To be perfectly honest, I doubt this entire set could have been any better. (Reading the last two sentence’s over I now realize how much of a pussy I must sound. I’m a bearded dude! Oh well.)

“I was afraid Meany Hall was a beer hall or something,” Lewis confided to the crowd near the end of the night. “With beer nuts.” Funny. Considering this is where the small orchestra’s usually play on campus and the closest beer nut was probably up the Ave a ways, Lewis had nothing to worry about. Starting a three song encore with “Godspeed,” Lewis took to the piano, an instrument that until this point had remained untouched. She then brought out opener’s Norfolk and Western to harmonize on “Acid Tongue,” and finished the night with a song all alone on stage that I would have to identify as new.

You can listen and watch low-res versions of much of the night on Youtube at c2weber’s youtube channel.

A Rough Setlist from memory after the fold.

A Rough Set List from memory (which means probably incomplete and not really in order) for Jenny Lewis (with Jonathan Rice) at Meany Hall at UW in Seattle, January 21, 2009

Rabbit Fur Coat
It’s a Hit (for our former president)
Grace of God
Carpetbaggers
Sing Mercy
Rise Up
Better Son, Better Daughter
Happy
Paradise
Silver Lining
Big Guns
Next Messiah
Love Hurts
It Wasn’t Me
End of the Affair
Melt Your Heart
Pretty Bird
The Charging Sky
You Are What you Love
Godspeed (on piano)
Acid Toungue
New One?