“I’m not going to play ‘Konstantine’ tonight,” Jack’s Mannequin frontman Andrew McMahon reported halfway through his set at Worcester’s Palladium last Wednesday night.
Serving as choir director for most of the nearly two-hour set, McMahon then playing a piano-driven version of the Something Corporate hit “Punk RockPrincess.”
Seemingly negative comments aside, the former SoCo frontman simply looked happy to be there. Diagnosis of Acute Lymphatic Leukemia in late May of 2005 sidelined the energetic singer just prior to the August 2005 release of Jack’s Mannequin’s debut album, Everything in Transit.
McMahon spent as much time thanking as he did pounding his piano, offering advice and praise to the fans that stuck by his side. A crowd consisting of equal parts teenyboppers, overprotective mothers and SoCo devotees gave its support by singing every word to Jack’s Mannequin’s mostly conventional set.
After coasting through an hour of songs from Everything in Transit, McMahon broke free in the second half of the show, jumping atop his piano in fits of manic energy. Though three-fourths of the band was barely heard from until a series of solos in the encore, no one seemed to mind.
An unreleased version of “La La Lie” closed the first part of the set and a cover of The Police’s “Message in a Bottle” began the encore. Shades of blue and orange highlighted the stage, hinting at the themes of the West Coast Winter tour.
The show was hardly groundbreaking, filled with delightfully cheesy high school anthems and familiar choruses. But when all was said and done, McMahon and Co. provided a little warm nostalgia on an icy cold evening.
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