Jenny Lewis and Hayden Pedigo team up for an evening of twangy glam at The Truman

March 6, 2024

Haley Mullenix, Lauren Textor,

Jenny Lewis. // photo by Haley Mullenix

Jenny Lewis
with Hayden Pedigo
The Truman
Tuesday, March 5

Touring in support of her latest album, Joy’All, and its number one single, “Psychos,” singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis brought her all-femme band to the Truman on Tuesday night to run through most of the new record, as well as some favorites from throughout her twenty year solo career.

I love live music, but I hate crowds. A lot of people hate crowds一maybe even most people. What I struggle with is a little more intense. It’s borderline agoraphobia. I have a difficult time relaxing at concerts, and I’m always scanning for emergency exits. When I sway to the music, it’s a conscious act to try and decrease my fight-or-flight response.

It’s been months since I’ve been to a full-length concert, and psyching myself up for Jenny Lewis’s March 5 performance at The Truman proved to be more anxiety-inducing than anything else. Despite the chill vibes of the venue and artists, my body felt clenched with stress from the moment I entered.

After spending several long minutes breathing heavily in the bathroom, I planted my feet near the back. I shuffled right, left, or further back several times as the venue filled up, but I finally found a comfortable spot where I had about two feet of space on either side of me.

Hayden Pedigo. // photo by Haley Mullenix

It was fitting that opener Hayden Pedigo appeared on stage soon after and began immediately talking about his intense stage fright.

He shared that he’s been performing live for less than a full year, as he first started touring last summer with Jenny Lewis. He made light of his shaky hands and his experience with panic attacks as he fingered the strings. Pedigo warned the audience about the frequent awkward pauses in his songs, which he uses to represent the flatness of the Texas panhandle, where he grew up.

“Tonight I’m going to take you all to Amarillo, Texas through my music,” he said. “And for that, I apologize.”

With his blue collared shirt rolled up past his wrists and his ginger grasp on the guitar, Pedigo looks like a tender, scholarly cowboy. For the first few songs, he kept his head bent over his instrument studiously, hardly glancing up.

I wasn’t previously familiar with Pedigo’s work, but his first song, “Carthage,” went straight to my heart. I usually only listen to instrumentals while working, but that’s Pedigo’s whole catalog.

“Carthage” grabbed me. It almost brought me to tears. It’s like a slow waterfall of sunshine over a quiet landscape.

Pedigo was surprisingly chatty for someone with such severe stage fright. (He’s also a model who has walked for Gucci, a politician, and the star of the 2021 documentary Kid Candidate一and he hasn’t yet turned 30.) He kept the audience chuckling with his dry, deadpan humor. He kept us enthralled with his personal narrative through his earnest admissions.

Whenever an artist says they’re thankful for such a great crowd, I take it with a grain of salt. Yes, I’m sure many of them are grateful for their fan base, but I don’t know that most of them have any true fondness for Kansas City. I’m more inclined to believe Pedigo than most.

“The thing about playing solo guitar music is that so much of it depends on the crowd,” he said, plucking the strings.

He explained that he plays all of his songs in open tunings and his somewhat peculiar choice for a cover.

Pedigo decided to play the theme for the 2005 Brokeback Mountain because he views it as one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

That, and he thinks “the pauses are excruciating” to an audience.

This excellent rendition segued into “Elsewhere” from Pedigo’s 2023 album The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored.

His lush velvet sound is perfectly suited to open for Jenny Lewis in her country era, but I’d argue that it’s also perfectly as the score to a night in, a first date, a contemplative afternoon, or a full-out cry.

It’s strange that such an accomplished, conventionally attractive young man can have so much anxiety about being onstage. Pedigo has the advantage of objective success (and a favorable review from Pitchfork) on his side when telling his personal narrative. But his status as the exact type of person that society tends to embrace doesn’t make his story disingenuous.

With a balanced cocktail of humor and candor that I quickly came to appreciate, Pedigo shared his idea for a virtual reality horror game. The player would put on the headset and then be forced to retune a guitar in front of a crowd on stage, as Pedigo did shortly before the end of his set.

“If you don’t have a panic attack, you win the game,” he said with a wry smile.

Truthfully, I could have watched Pedigo perform his entire discography, but it was time for him to cede the stage to Jenny Lewis.

Jenny Lewis. // photo by Haley Mullenix

Lewis appeared to raucous applause with a red bandana tied around her neck, accenting her otherwise dark, sleek outfit. The band (which features Megan Coleman on drums, Nicole Lawrence on guitar, Ryan Madora on bass, and Jess Nolan on keys) plays with the country glam aesthetic that Lewis is currently leaning into.

They lead with “The Big Guns” before leaping into “Do Si Do,” one of my personal favorites.

“Open the window,” Lewis croons. “Get back in the saddle.”

I’m struck by the excellent sound design of the evening. Neither the tone nor the volume of the evening are especially loud, but the clarity rings through.

Lewis and co. perform “Joy’All”, the title track off the tour album, followed by “Heads Gonna Roll,” which was my introduction to Lewis.

Lewis’s saccharine voice is on full display in this tune about lost love. Like many of Lewis’s songs, it’s themed around disappointing men deserving of revenge. It’s also lyrically and vocally gorgeous.

“Even though we were just friends, I think of us as bookends,” she sings.

“Red Bull & Hennessy” is a great example of Lewis’s current sound in that it frames red-hot female desire but also sounds like it could score an R-rated horsegirl movie. (Like the 1994 Western Bad Girls, starring Drew Barrymore.)

I’m not going to lie: I left the concert before the final encore. No matter how captivated I was by Lewis’s on-stage presence, it wasn’t enough to make me forget about the awkward crowd flow that occurs as a small venue empties.

It’s a tall order for any occasion to make me forget the dangers of this American life. But with my deep-set fear of public spaces and the anxious mindset of Kansas Citians in the aftermath of the Super Bowl parade shooting, it’s enough to feel like a concert is worth the worry.

All photos by Haley Mullenix.

Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis setlist
The Big Guns
Do Si Do
Psychos
She’s Not Me
Joy’all
Heads Gonna Roll
Wasted Youth
Rise Up With Fists!!
Dogwood
Red Bull & Hennessy
Little White Dove
Chain of Tears
Late Bloomer
Lust for Life (Girls cover)
Puppy and a Truck
See Fernando
The Next Messiah
—
Love Feel
Just One of the Guys
Acid Tongue