After a decade being born, Josh Tillman is finally busy dying.
Father John Misty returns to Iowa tonight on October 1st at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines for the first time since performing at 80/35 festival in 2022, a show I was not only at, but also vaguely remember. He is supported by Cut Worms, a soft rock singer-songwriter from Ohio who’s been accompanying this leg of the tour throughout the central, southern, and midwestern U.S. This current tour celebrating the release of Father John Misty’s most recent album, Mahashmashana, has been going practically non-stop since February traveling across and back from the U.S. and Europe. Tonight’s show will feature most of his hit songs since 2012 woven between tracks from the new Mahashmashana, and yes, he will probably play the Tiktok song. If we’re lucky, he might even hit us with an ego-death-and-cigarette-fueled monologue about something or nothing in particular.
The latest album’s title is sourced from the Sanskrit word Mahāśmaśāna (महाश्मशान) defined as “great cremation ground, all things going thither.” Though not quite as “viral” as his standout singles and Lana Del Rey collaborations, Mahashmashana oozes an Old Hollywood jazz with wild terrors blended into the soft rock. It navigates themes of mental health and death on a jarring rollercoaster of psychedelic jazz, to sweeping strings, to uptempo rock n’ cowbells. It’s genuine and spiritual in a way that (historically) Father John Misty once tended to subvert. His real name is Josh Tillman, and he’s a former member of Fleet Foxes, so not actually a priest. In the past with albums like God’s Favorite Customer and Pure Comedy, his persona developed into something strangely caustic and haughty, using his own self-awareness to poke at fans who lacked the same particular trait. Despite mellowing out since then (nearly a decade ago), he’s still a sort of contentious figure in the music world, words like pretentious, spiteful, and douchebag are often associated with his character.
Mahashmashana, all is silent
Mahashmashana, by Father John Misty, 2024
And in thе next universal dawn
Won’t have to do thе corpse dance, do the corpse dance
Do the corpse dance with these on
The last time I saw Father John Misty in 2022 (newly bald-ed), I had just finished by first year of college and could not imagine what life after my graduation would hold (it was another degree thus more college). But most things aren’t the same, all the loose pieces of my life since that summer have changed and continue to shift as everything in the world starts, ends, and breathes in the dissonance. I’ll be soaking in the haze of Des Moines air and stale marijuana scent on the corpse dance floor tonight. I’m preparing by setting myself in that nauseating heady mood as I get ready to head over to Val Air, packed only with the absolute essentials: a silver cross and loose tobacco.
Tickets for the event are for sale from First Fleet Concerts here.
