I saw the announcement for The Smithereens Tour and thought no way, A Girl Like You? Blues Before and After? I am totally there. Oh me, you’re so silly. Those guys haven’t been around since 1990 and aren’t suddenly going to turn up at the Frost Amphitheater at Stanford all these years later. But Joji and SavageRealm and Rei Brown turned up at Frost with their own Smithereens tour, and brought fans that started lining up at 4am, and fans that ran screaming down the amphitheater hill to get first place up against the general admission stage barrier, and fans that loved every minute of all three acts.
SavageRealm got the crowd hyped, then Rei Brown got the crowd swooning, and then the crowd was both hyped and swooning for Joji when he strolled out onstage wearing his big mirrored glasses and a chest fanny pack. With his YouTube history it made sense that he broke up the music with some interactive events, like launching t-shirts into the crowd from trebuchets and t-shirt cannons, and bringing a Captain Jack Sparrow lookalike onstage to banter with. He’s a performer. A performer who didn’t play my favorite song (Run), but did sing his new Glimpse of Us to much elated audience participation. Frost at Stanford holds about 8000 people, and Joji sold it out, plus sold out the Bill Graham Civic in San Francisco the next night. Next stop, arenas? Joji could totally do it.