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At a sold-out Bowery Ballroom on Friday night, fans were stressed.
They had been reading the news.
Theyd made a separate group chat to keep the headlines away from the joy.
They were watchingMaddowand reading the AP for 20 minutes daily before law school.
They were trying to take a step back from the updates.
They were evangelizing about Heather Cox Richardson and Jamelle Bouie.
They were streaming Hasan Piker on their bosss dime every damn day.
They were still on X, but they were verifying their sources.
They were considering running for county committee and getting back into organizing.
They were studying all 1,249 pages ofThe Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
They were cybersecurity journalists, lawyers defending climate scientists from political censorship (work lately?
a nightmare), and federal workers wondering about their jobs.
Football-match chants of Jesse!
He ran through tunes about processed foods, whistleblowing at Boeing, fentanyl, Elon Musk.
There were titterings of weary laughter and the occasional solidarity fist in the air.
(During one number, an attendee shouted, Why didnt you film this one in the woods?)
More than a dozen concertgoers told me they grew up on Dylan.
For a duo of 24-year-old north Brooklyn Matts attending the show together, Dylan had led them to Welles.
He introduced me to John Prine and got me into a lot of older folk music.
This is just kind of a different font.
It captures the futility of the moment.
In the 2024 general election, she wrote Joe Biden in as a fuck-you vote.
Thats what they deserve.
She had been surprised with tickets by her son-in-law, Ben.
I feel like Im inTheTwilight Zonebecause I love him.
But every morning and every night I would listen to his songs.
Hes on my feed and I just suck it up.
But a few said they typically stay away from music they view this way.
Although I do tend to agree with a lot of his politics.
(She places herself on the left.)
Its just one guy singing from the heart.
Nonetheless, this was a mostly white room full of Kamala voters with a few Gaza-motivated abstainers mixed in.
They were lovers of NPR andThe Dailyor the MarxistRev Left Radio.
(Rogan himselfis a Welles fan.)
He writes a lot of songs, said Allegra, who was there celebrating her 33rd birthday.
I havent listened to every single one.
In fact, he had released an album of another dozen songs that day,Middle.
These are ones that are self-indulgent, or at least I feel like they are at times.
I like to do both.
Theyre two different mediums.
Will his topical songs still find listeners in a year or three?
Mid-show, an audience member was overcome with radical inspiration.
The revolution will not be televised!
she screamed between songs.
Welles tried to defuse it with a wry joke: Thats because there aint a whole lot of TV.
She repeated her political prophecy louder a second time.
All Welles could do was smile.
Faaar out, he said, starting once again to play.
