The applause started as the rotating stage at the Hollywood Bowl started to turn, and by the time it revealed Joni Mitchell and her Joni Jam band, everyone in the crowd on Sunday was on their feet, cheering a moment few ever imagined could happen.
Nine years after a brain aneurysm nearly killed Mitchell and left her ability to sing again in doubt, the legendary singer-songwriter played her first Southern California concerts since 2000 with a pair of sold-out shows at the Bowl on Saturday and Sunday.
On Sunday, Mitchell played 27 songs over three hours, and as one song followed another, it became increasingly hard to recall another show that felt as full of love and grace as this one.
1 of 4
Love from the audience rolled down from the seats with the warm fall breeze, with Mitchell clearly feeling it as she laughed at the end of each song, seemingly awed by the reactions she elicited.
“Look at that crowd!” she said in amazement early in the show, and then called out the fans from the land of her birth. “Where are the Canadians?” The Canadians cheered.
More love shined from the Joni Jammers, the informal group of musicians organized by singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile in 2017 to play monthly jam sessions at Mitchell’s home, eventually inspiring this return to live performance.
“Man, Joni you sounded good last night, but holy (cow) you sound unbelievable tonight,” Carlile told her at one point.
And yet more love from a few very famous friends, including Elton John and Meryl Streep, who only appeared on Sunday’s show, joining a group on stage to sing backing vocals in a Joni Jam band that included such stars as Annie Lennox, Marcus Mumford, Jon Batiste, and Jacob Collier.
John, who sat in the back row next to Streep, stood and bowed in the we’re-not-worthy wave at the end of one song.
The night began with “Be Cool,” and what could be cooler than seeing Mitchell on a throne-like armchair, her signature blonde braids beneath a stylish black hat, sunglasses, a black cane with a silver bear head on the handle, snapping her fingers in time to the music as she sang.
“Harlem in Havana” followed, a tune that until Saturday night she had never before played live, and with it the structure of her first set started to come into focus. Mitchell didn’t want to play just the hits. She had deeper explorations of her oeuvre to explore.
“The Sire of Sorrow (Job’s Sad Song),” the dark closing track on 1994’s “Turbulent Indigo,” and “If I Had a Heart,” a powerful anti-war song written during the Iraq War but still just as timely, also made their live debuts this weekend, and many songs in the first set hadn’t been performed by her in decades.
Mixed in were much-loved numbers including “Coyote,” one of four songs from “Hejira,” and “Carey,” one of three from Blue.” Before the latter, Mitchell encouraged the crowd to sing.
“Sing along if you know the words,” she said.
“Oh, they know the words,” Carlile replied as band and fans alike laughed and sang along.
Mitchell’s voice has lowered, so the crystalline soprano of her earlier decades long ago shifted to a warm alto. But even in that lower key, her unique phrasing and ability to slide her vocals in and around the unusual rhythms of her music remains intact.
“Both Sides, Now” closed the first set, and in addition to being one of her best-known songs, it’s a number that speaks beautifully to a human’s ability to survive whatever life presents. “But now old friends, they’re acting strange / They shake their heads and say, ‘Joni, you’ve changed,” she sang. “Well something’s lost, but something’s gained / In living every day.”
Looking around at the end of that one found many wiping tears from their eyes.
The already large band for the first set, which included the Sista Strings string section, trumpet and soprano sax player Mark Isham, and guitarist Blake Mills, the musical director for the Joni Jammers, grew even more for the second set. John, Streep, Lennox, Batiste, actor-singer Rita Wilson, and singer Allison Russell all had chairs and microphones now.
And the second half of the show also focused more on upbeat hits, opening with “Big Yellow Taxi,” which had the crowd up and dancing, and then “Raised on Robbery,” which saw Batiste rocking through a boogie-woogie piano solo at the end.
“The Joni Jam, it started out a bunch of us singing songs to Joni – singing Joni songs to Joni, which is unimaginably terrifying,” Carlile said. “Then she started singing a little with us, and more and more until she sounded like this.
“In the spirit of the Joni Jam, I’d like to get Marcus Mumford up here to sing with Joni, she added, bringing the Mumford & Sons singer up to sit next to Mitchell and sing “California,” with Mitchell joining on the choruses.
Two songs later, Annie Lennox came up to sing a fantastic take on “Ladies of the Canyon,” one of Mitchell’s most iconic songs, written about a spot three miles to the west when Mitchell lived in a small house in Laurel Canyon in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
The George Gershwin standard “Summertime” and her own “Come in From the Cold” returned Mitchell to lead vocals, both of them with softer accompaniment that let the beauty of her lived-in voice shine.
More classic songs followed, including “A Case of You,” which got a standing ovation from practically every person in the Bowl including Elton and Meryl, and then Mitchell’s rearranged version of John’s own “I’m Still Standing,” which Carlile said she’d created earlier this year to sing when John and lyricist Bernie Taupin received the Gershwin Prize, which she’d earned a year earlier, at the Library of Congress.
“She said she’d do it if she could do the most Joni Mitchell thing ever, which is rewrite all the verses,” Carlile said, laughing.
“Not all of them,” Mitchell replied, adding, “This is called ‘I’m Still Standing’ but I think we’ll have to call it ‘I’m Still Sitting’ after all these years.”
John watched, singing backing vocals from the back row, and at the finish stood and blew kisses to Mitchell. He had attended Joni Jams at her home in the past and clearly was delighted to be part of this one.
Streep’s presence was a bit of a mystery until the morning after when we realized that director Cameron Crowe has been collaborating with Mitchell on a biopic of her life and Streep is reportedly a possible pick – maybe likely at this point – to play her in her later years.
As the end of the show neared, Mitchell sang “Dog Eat Dog” with an ad-libbed line about Donald Trump – you can surely guess how she feels about him – and the last of at least three pleas for the audience to get out and vote in the upcoming presidential election.
A song or two later “Shine” arrived, a lovely gospel lullaby from the 2007 album of the same name that is her most recent studio album, followed by the final song, “The Circle Game,” which with the opening set’s closer “Both Sides, Now,” are perhaps her signature songs.
“And the seasons, they go ’round and ’round,” sang Mitchell, now in her 80th year of changing seasons. “And the painted ponies go up and down / We’re captive on the carousel of time.”
If you close your eyes for a moment you can picture it: Mitchell and all the others on stage singing, everyone in boxes and benches of the Bowl, singing too.
“We can’t return, we can only look / Behind from where we came,” she sang on. “And go ’round and ’round and ’round / In the circle game.”
