Review: AJR ACOUSTIC SET at Newport Music Hall

Perhaps the true test of a band is what happens when you strip away all the lights, fireworks, and projection screens and get it down to the bare minimum. Are they still capable of entertaining?

AJR, a trio which uses animation, an extravagant light show, and special effects to amuse the masses at Nationwide Arena and the Ohio State Fair, played a low-key acoustic set Dec. 8  in the intimate confines of the Newport Music Hall (1722 N. High Street in downtown Columbus). Stripped to the core and with one member missing  (bassist Adam Met was absent), AJR delivered a bright, engaging performance to a sold-out crowd. The audience seemed to embrace it as much as the band seemed to enjoy doing it.

“This is so much fun,” said Jack Met, who performed with his brother Ryan during WNCI’s Acoustic Chrismukkah fundraiser for the Mid-Ohio Food Collective. “We want you to sing along and dance along and have a good time. Thank you all for coming.”

The benefit, which also featured The Orphan The Poet and Ray Jones, raised enough money for Ohio’s largest food bank to purchase 20,000 meals.

With Arnetta Johnson (trumpet) and Chris Berry (drummer) rounding out the sound, AJR motored through a breezy 10-song set spanning the trio’s 20-year career, including “Sober Up,” “Burn the Whole House Down,” “Bang,” “The World’s Smallest Violin,” and “Weak.”  The acoustic versions of the songs didn’t surrender any of their sway from the fully orchestrated versions. “Sober Up” took a whole new confessional tone as an acoustic piece.

While some of their lyrics read like crib notes from a therapy session, Jack and Ryan Met kept things light. With their self-deprecating humor, they engaged the multi-generational crowd, which ranged from an elementary school student sporting pajamas and Jack’s trademark fur-lined hat to  a 40-something father tentatively leading six children onto the general admission floor.

One of the trademarks of the trio’s big arena shows – reading audience signs – translated well into the smaller venue. One sign read: It’s my birthday. Hat please. “The first half is full of wonder. It makes me want to sing happy birthday to you,” Jack laughed. “This is the same hat I’ve been wearing since the (2019) Neotheater Tour maybe. Believe me you don’t want what’s under here.”

After playing “Bang,” AJR pulled a young fan onstage for an impromptu “hamster drawing contest,” sparked when Jack spotted the challenge on the kid’s sign. Lacking paper, Ryan tore the fan’s sign in half (“He said it was okay, but from the audience’s point of view, this looks so bad,” Jack joked) and the two squared off. As the crowd chanted “hamster,” the fan easily out-sketched Ryan, whose doodle looked more like a dachshund than a hamster, and walked away with an autographed drumstick. “I forgot what a hamster looked like,” Ryan said.

The hamster drawing contest wasn’t the only unusual inclusion into the set. The show included a seemingly odd choice of a cover tune,  Smash Mouth’s “All-Star.”  “This is a song we’ve been doing for a very long time,” Jack said. “We started doing this when we were trying to make it in New York City. Let’s sing this one together. It’s one of the best songs ever.”

One of the best parts of the concert was when the two lifted the curtain behind some of their songs. Jack said their groundbreaking  hit, “Burn the House Down” was rejected from a movie soundtrack. “It really wasn’t right,” Jack said. “We decided to take it into our own hands and add some clicks and clacks in there.”

Midway through the set, AJR introduced “The Big Goodbye,” a relatively new tune they envisioned as a concert closer. This song has callbacks to previous songs. The lyrics include “I wrote a song about being Weak” as a nod to “Weak” and later adding "If this is what a happy end looks like" an Easter egg from “The Good Part.”

The song was originally supposed to be included on the album, “The Maybe Man,” but the group tooled around with it and included an updated version on the EP “What No One’s Thinking.”

“We wrote this as a finale and we can’t believe how it took off,” Jack said. “It’s about when you look at your dreams, you wonder is that what you really wanted.”

For its actual finale, the two improvised a rendition of “Steve’s Going to London,” a song which they have rarely done acoustically. As they closed out their experimental acoustic show, AJR promised a return visit to the Capital City for a more fully fleshed out concert.

“We are going to come back soon, Columbus,” Jack said. “We’ve been playing here since our first tour. I don’t say this about every city but, for a long time, it was our favorite city to perform in.”

Whether they are a duo or a trio, play fully orchestrated songs or acoustic ones, or utilize widescreen projections or a simple baren stage, AJR has proven they are worth checking out.

*Setting the stage for AJR were two acts with Columbus roots, Ray Jones and The Orphan The Poet. Jones, a 2004 graduate of Columbus Academy, has a unique, smooth sound and received some airplay for his single “Tell Somebody.”

The Orphan The Poet ripped through a raucous five-song set, featuring “Headstones,” “Queen Cobra,” “Birthday,” “Carolina Reaper” and “Feelin’ Good (Could Be Better).”

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