From the honey-sweet vocals of M64 to the brooding and elaborate piano jazz of the Ben Darwish Trio to the super sarcastic comic stage persona of DJ James Pants, Saturday night at Jimmy Mak’s was—needless to say—a wildly eclectic evening, but not entirely wild, given how the evening shifted from lukewarm and unenthused to dancing on the ceiling bravado (and attendees would’ve gone there if it weren’t for gravity).
There is no doubting—among all the evening had to offer—Mayer Hawthorne & The County stole the show with good vibrations and unstoppable magnetism. What began as a mild-mannered dinner party atmosphere transformed, within literal seconds of Hawthorne & The County taking the stage, into a love-soaked dance fest that filled every inch of available space between tables with hip-shakes and handclaps and dreamy grins.
While the first three acts did a commendable job of pleasing the room, only Hawthorne & The County could ignite the once burnt-out, straight-faced crowd—which had previously appeared more interested in clinking their forks against plates than anything clinking onstage—into a frenzy of music-lovers whose only interest in the room was centered dead-on the red velvet curtain-adorned stage before them.
It was something between heartwarming and surprising to witness the spirit in the room skyrocket from such blandness to such heights, as though only Hawthorne’s hugely charismatic presence and the band’s incredibly infectious classic ‘60s soul could make it so. The rich sultry rhythms and crooning, upbeat melodies and cosmic, danceable keyboard affects came together to act like a giant gesture of unconditional love, seducing the crowd to move both closer together and closer to the stellar musicians onstage.
Between songs, Hawthorne was insistent on reminding audience members of the greatest feeling of all: “Are you feeling the love?” “We do a lot of crazy ass shit for love, don’t we?” Love is all right, right?” When it’s coming from such a charming, dapper and downright thrilling collective of loveable soul musicians? You bet it is.
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