Is it possible to wash yourself up if you don’t take interviews? As far as being “washed up” as a musician, Cass McCombs has remained so private and low-profile, with almost no social media presence, rarely giving interviews, and offering very little spoken onstage. As a lyricist, he has quietly masterminded literature-worthy cadences in his songs over the years. The lyrics are extremely personal, yet vague enough to keep distance between listener and artist; sometimes it’s a wry smile, sometimes it’s a shocking question, and sometimes it feels like a local radio station drifting in and out.
April 9 at The Great American Music Hall, the crowd was sparse and cliquey. The Bay Area art community vibe sprinkled the crowd. But there’s always a hometown penant that feels personal when he anchors up in the bay.
The crowd that knows Cass knows Cass, and Walnut Creek in the 90’s was represented there. Civic Park was a hippie hideaway back when, where poets were bred. Suburban kids drinking espresso with joints in their mouths and acid in their pockets.
Hand Habits opened the night. Meg was sitting at a very small plastic craft table, repping Hand Habits with stickers, pins, and vinyl. When I made the connection that Meg was not only guesting and opening for Cass McCombs, but was in Hand Habits, rather, is Hand Habits, and backs Perfume Genius, I blinked slowly, and my eyelids hurt. Meg was sitting there as if to have the job of trading wooden coins for food stamps at a farmers market, or being the human who hands out the five-dollar bags at a book fair, all the while sitting in the room, big, magnificent in a tiny way. Meg is a shapeshifter musically, and I have witnessed shocking blare and precious silences in all of the manifestations I’ve seen them perform in.
I think everything Cass McCombs has ever produced, including a new poetry book, was represented at his merch table. The night was as slow as I think the general feeling about the 2025 album Interior Live Oak, which Cass released. One close friend said, “It’s a long album.” I took that comment as an arduous listen, but I consider the album more as little whispers from the universe, tales from trees. It’s not really easy to identify where the impetus of the songs comes from, but there is a rhythmic woven chime to the record that beats in one as you travel through it. I had wondered what people thought of the record because it had been reviewed really well, but to see the crowd in San Francisco, chatty and shuffling, was a little surprising to me, as I’ve seen him in that venue packed to the gills in many different formats.
This album is a standstill in itself. It’s hypnotic. There are a few poppy, almost punk moments underneath what I will say I didn’t say, but Pitchfork did say Leonard Cohen quality lyrics and musicianship, wow, that was heavy. I don’t think Leonard Cohen gave interviews either.
I recognized the band he had with him, though I think one or two of the musicians might have been touring. The band is 100 percent in step and has been for a while now. Adding Meg was the medicine on top of the set list.
Priestess
Miss Mabee
Asphodel
A Girl Named Dogie
Home at Last
Missionary Bell
Peace
Juvenile
I Never Dream About Trains
Your Mother and Father
Meet Me Here at Dawn
Big Wheel
Music Is Blue
Opium Flower
Bum Bum Bum
Sleeping Volcanoes
Encore:
County Line
That’s That
I feel most of Cass McCombs’s writing has a political undertone, in jest or in all seriousness, and can flip in a moment into wordy tension. This record isn’t about an apocalypse showing up, and you don’t feel hopeless when you hear it. It feels a little like channeling, like being at peace with creativity, maybe not noticing as much that the world is burning because you are shining a light.
A lot of early material was played, possibly because friends were in the house, but it was lovely to hear songs off the EP “A” from eons ago. “I Never Dream About Trains” off the new album Interior Live Oak as a track hidden deep in the record, painting the picture of two lovers dissolving into each other with the understanding that that is the case. It’s written with no bridge, plain as can be, and it goes on for six minutes. I have never experienced a song from my generation that has kept my interest in that way, with little to no changes vocally or musically throughout. It’s a blinding dream vision, and it feels unreal. It’s too sparse to be sad, but he played it eloquently that night, knowing confidence and musical precision held the set together.
He encored with the classic “County Line” and jammed it out to high hell, showcasing the reason for the scattered tie-dyes in the audience. The last tour Cass McCombs supported was Beth Gibbons of Portishead. It’ll be interesting to see where he warps to next.
