I had the chance to see the cult icon Daniel Johnston perform at Omaha's Slowdown venue last night. Johnston, 47, is an incredibly talented lyricist and has pinned some of the greatest lines I've ever heard. He's been diagnosed with bipolar disease and he has an amazingly difficult and dark past. His life was the subject of the 2005 music documentary, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," which I find to be the second best music documentary I've ever seen (The first being "Be Here to Love Me," A Townes Van Zandt doc). The show was quite enjoyable and Johnston was a very kind and appreciative performer. He has a difficult time remembering the words to his songs so he has notebooks with journals of his lyrics on a music stand to his aid. He played three or four tunes by himself on guitar before an accompanist on acoustic guitar joined him. He took a short break before a backing band came out. He wound up losing his voice, so an encore didn't happen, instead a few of the band mates came out and led the audience in a couple rounds of Johnston's tune "Devil Town."Highlights for me was hearing the tune "Grievances," an ending rendition of "True Love Will Find You in the End" and one of my favorites of his, "Living Life."
Openers for Johnston had Nebraska roots. Only caught the last three songs from Neva Dinova frontman Jake Bellows' set, which got me excited for the new Neva Dinova disc in April. The other opener Flowers Forever really didn't do much for me... at all.
Here's an mp3 of Living Life
photo credit: clay
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