Will Wood

Will Wood is my favorite artist at the moment, so you can imagine the excitement I felt when I learned he was going to be touring. He definitely did not disappoint. His eclectic music is so fun, and they all have deeper critiques of society, and that really shined through during his performance.

Will Wood performed at The Treasury, which is the smallest venue I have ever been to, with a max capacity of roughly 150 people. It was a bit cramped, I’ll admit, but the audience was a lot of respectful people, so I didn’t have much issue with being comfortable and seeing well. To put into perspective how small it is: there is no backstage. Will Wood was standing next to the audience against the wall waiting for his cue to come on stage and start his show.

The show was a mix of song performances, comedy, advice, and social commentary on society as a whole. Will Wood liked to discuss the deeper meanings of his songs and ramble about them a bit before he performed each one. He would also talk to people in the audience since the crowd was so small, which made it a very personal and enjoyable experience.

I genuinely don’t know how to describe his music, since each album has a completely different sound. If I were to try and generalize it, I would have to say it’s closest to a mix of rap, indie rock, and swing jazz. Though, since he is a fairly small artist working by himself, he didn’t have the same ensemble for the music and played only with a ukulele, a guitar, and a keyboard to perform his songs.

He is genuinely so funny and had a lot of fascinating perspectives on the state of American society and social media. I really enjoyed listening to his rambling about it, and it actually felt almost like a one-on-one conversation with the way that he talked to the audience.

Some of my favorite songs by him are ‘Front Street’ (from the album Everything is a Lot, 2015) ‘The Song with Five Names a.k.a. Soapbox Tao a.k.a. Checkmate Atheists! a.k.a. Neospace Government (A.K.A. You Can Never Know)’ (from the album Self-Ish, 2016), ‘Love me, Normally’ (from the album The Normal Album, 2020), and ‘Your Body, my Temple’ (one of his recent singles, 2021).

The merch table was small, and yet they still had a good amount of plus-sized merch shirts to choose from. In fact, they actually ran out of the smaller sized quicker than the larger ones.

Unfortunately, he had a no-camera policy due to the fact that he is currently in the process of making a documentary about his tour, so I wasn’t able to get any photos or videos of his show. However, that isn’t a huge deal to me. Overall, his music isn’t for everyone, but it certainly is for me. If you like weird, eclectic music, I would definitely consider giving some of his music a listen.