Father John Misty Lectured A Festival Crowd About Evil Instead Of Playing His Songs

It is very, very hard to tell when you’re hearing the genuine opinions of Josh Tillman or the act of his trolling troubadour Father John Misty. All we know is this: one day after Donald Trump was nominated as the Republican candidate for POTUS, Tillman/Misty took the stage at XPN Festival in Camden, New Jersey and lectured on the idea of evil in the world.

Tillman/Misty ranted about the ills of the world and questioned the role that entertainment plays in distracting people from it. Check out a snippet of his speech via XPN:

“I always thought that it was going to look way more sophisticated than this when evil happened. When the collective consciousness was so numb and so f*cking sated and so gorged on entertainment. … How entertaining should this be right now with a f*cking battleship in the background and this sh*t on TV, how f*cking fun should this be? How f*cking fun can it be? Can it be real in any sense? Like, I cannot play ‘Bored in the USA’ for you right now. No no no, because guess what? I soft-shoed that sh*t into existence by going, ‘No no no, look over here, it’ll never actually be that bad because we’re too smart.’ And while we were looking in that direction, stupidity just f*cking runs the world because entertainment is stupid! Do you guys realize that?”

Misty then improvised a 10-minute-long song about current events, the festival and the song’s own existence before closing the “set” with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird On A Wire”. He walked off stage 30 minutes earlier after playing zero of his own songs.

Fan reaction to the performance was mixed.

https://twitter.com/sydneysabbott/status/756887860989550592
https://twitter.com/sliceObri/status/756901123949199360
https://twitter.com/cara_salimando/status/756900272375406592
https://twitter.com/taramurtha/status/756896112493993984
https://twitter.com/ashcech/status/756884460658913281

UPDATE: Yep, Misty was feeling some type of way about Trump. He explained his performance in a series of Instagram posts.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BINrqk7BwjK/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BINsC7nhAYi/

(via Pitchfork)