Mike Doughty // Live @ Crescent Ballroom // 1.31.17

Article and Photos by: Jason Robey

Phoenix, AZ — Well-seasoned and innovative alternative rocker Mike Doughty made his fourth Phoenix-area appearance in twelve months at the Crescent Ballroom on Tuesday night, still finding new ways to deliver his unique style of songwriting every time. Touring to support his latest studio album, 2016’s The Heart Watches While the Brain Burns, this was Doughty’s first show in the area in several years with a full band, bringing members of the band Wheatus to back him up.

Wheatus kicked off the evening with a stripped down 45-minute opening set, featuring three out of the six members of the band. Vocalist/guitarist Brendan B. Brown led backup vocalist Gabriel Sterbenz and stand-up bassist Matthew Milligan through a handful of quirky, tongue-in-cheek  songs spanning their six studio albums. Opening with “The London Sun,” from their 2005 album, TooSoonMonsoon, Brown interacted often with the crowd, telling stories and joking about everything from how they forgot they had a song called “Texas” when they were playing shows in the state to bouncing back from ”impending apocalypse.” He also made references to an Arizona tourist attraction known as The Thing on they stopped at on their way into the state, even drinking a bottle of water with their logo on it.

Before leaving the stage, Brown said “thanks for remembering us” to the audience and played their best-known song, “Teenage Dirtbag,” from their self-titled 2000 debut album. The top 10 song has been featured in several movies, TV shows, and commercials throughout the years.

After a short break, Mike Doughty walked to center-stage, picked up a hand-held, box-shaped synthesizer, and opened his set with a solo version of “Lazybones,” a song originally recorded by his former band, Soul Coughing for their 1994 debut album, Ruby Vroom. He was then joined by the three members of Wheatus, plus longtime touring cellist, Scrap, and  drummer Pete Wilhout, who had played on two of Doughty’s previous albums. The stage now full, the band launched into another Soul Coughing track, “Sleepless,” from their 1996 sophomore album Irresistible Bliss.

Following the breakup of Soul Coughing in 2000, Doughty began his solo career, scarcely touching many of the songs he had written and recorded with the band. It was only in the past few years that he has revisited much of the material from their three albums, even recording an album of reworked Soul Coughing songs in 2014. Tonight, he did not shy away from those tracks, pulling 10 out of the 16 songs performed from that catalog.

The audience received the Soul Coughing songs and his solo material with open arms, cheering and singing along with newer songs like “I Can’t Believe I Found You in This Town,” “Light Will Keep Your Heart Beating in the Future,” and “Raging On” alongside older songs like “Bus to Beezlebub,” “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago,” and “Circles.”

Sometimes playing guitar, sometimes playing a sampler, and sometimes just singing, Doughty brought an energetic performance along with his trademark quirky sense of humor and playful banter with the audience and with Scrap. On this tour, he has also made it a habit to place a cell phone on a mic stand at the front of the stage, to live-stream the show on Facebook.

Eighty minutes into the show, he announced that the next song would be the “fake last song,” where they would pretend to leave and it would turn out to be a lie. They then went into “St. Louise Is Listening” as Doughty yelled “thank you, Phoenix!” When the song was over, the lights went down, and the band members all turned around, facing the wall. About a minute later, they turned back around and the lights turned on. A lone voice from the crowd screamed “I’m so surprised by this!” They closed the night with another Soul Coughing classic, “True Dreams of Wichita”

Catch Mike Doughty on tour with Wheatus through the mid-March.