Indie artist John Vincent III took Thalia Hall to the mountains Oct. 2.
Indie artist John Vincent III took Thalia Hall to the mountains Oct. 2.
Indie musician John Vincent III turned Thalia Hall into a musing, musical mountainside by bringing touching nostalgia and playfulness to the intimate space.
The Oct. 2 show was Vincent’s first time playing in Chicago, having only ever visited the city once before for his 21st birthday.
He opened with “City Rain,” a wistful song featuring painful anecdotes about growing up and losing childhood splendor. The crowd of city-dwelling Chicagoans sang along as Vincent considered the ups-and-downs of living alone.
“And now you’re crying in the city rain / ‘Cause it just doesn’t feel the same as it did when you were young / You were in love, and now you work away your days, but ain’t that all you ever wanted in your life?” Vincent sang.
For his next song, “Lover of Mine,” Vincent brought out his harmonica to accompany tender wishes to slow down time. Vincent sang about the small aspects of love like listening to a favorite song or laying together in the morning.
The crowd welcomed the more upbeat “Bluebird Singing” with rhythmic clapping and playful dancing. Vincent sang with youthful joy and upbeat nonchalance, taking the crowd down winding roads without care.
“It’s a song about second chances and finding your way back to the things that you love,” Vincent said of “Bluebird Singing.”
Vincent then brought the crowd on a road trip to New Mexico with the Bruce Springsteen-referencing “Money and My Pride,” a song about needing a break from life’s incessant labor.
“All the way home, driving / Singing Springsteen through New Mexico / With my head hanging outside my window / Spit flying and I’m just hoping this state trooper don’t flip them lights on,” Vincent sang.
Continuing his melodically calm and intimate performance style, Vincent turned to “Slow Song,” aptly named for its pace and painful subject matter. The song embodied the guilt of leaving home and “giving life a shot.”
“I threw my fears into the ocean / Hoping that they’d be washed away,” Vincent sang.
Vincent opted to perform “Mountain Sounds” — the second song he ever wrote — without his band, leaving him alone on stage.
“And I’ve had too many nightmares to get lost in my dreams anymore / So pass me another drink, babe, hoping it’ll go away,” Vicent sang.
In his Chicago-tailored rendition of “In My Sheets,” Vincent transported the Thalia Hall crowd to river valleys and deltas, down through Virginia, up to Ohio and back home to Chicago.
“Will you take me there, my lover? / I don’t think I’ll make it out of the hell I created in my mind,” Vincent sang.
For the Thalia show, Vincent changed the lyric “Maybe somewhere like Ohio” to “Maybe somewhere like Chicago.”
Before the encore, Vincent connected to the audience with his most-streamed song, “Next to You,” taking out his ear pugs and singing without a microphone.
“Let’s pack our bags and head to the Rockies, babe / Just you and I getting lost in open spaces,” Vincent sang.
Vincent returned from a brief break to perform “Next to You” one more time and concluded the show with “That’s Just The Way It Is, Babe.” Vincent played both songs acoustically, saying he wanted the audience to hear the songs the way he wrote them.
“A fall from heaven or a fall from grace / I don’t know. Either way, kid, it’s gonna hurt the whole way down,” Vicent sang.
After the show, Vincent shared an Instagram post Oct. 6 thanking the crowd for a beautiful night.
“Chicago, that was the sickest headline show of my life,” he wrote.
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