It’s no secret that Father John Misty (alter ego of Joshua Tillman) is the new Hipster Jesus with an acerbic tongue and cunning wit.  All of which he brought with him to the stage at The Palace Theater Thursday night.  Attacking the stage with an ironic sense of narcissism and overzealous performance – and yet Misty spent most of the show hidden from the audience by shadow.

The set was tight – his band sharp and on-point from beginning end.  The show opened with the title track from his latest album “I Love You, Honeybear,” and proceeded to focus a lot on that material, playing 10 of the 11 songs off the record.  He also managed to pull-out over half of his critically acclaimed debut album “Fear Fun.”

The band played rousing renditions of fan favorites like “I’m Writing a Novel,” “Fun Times in Babylon,” and “This is Sally Hatchet.”  The show really took off when the band dug into the newer material with stunning version of “When You’re Smiling Astride Me.”  And the emotional intensity of “Bored in the U.S.A.” is hard to ignore as he lament’s the lies told to an entire generation of suburban kids who didn’t inherit the world they were promised.  Finally, they ended the set with an explosive rendition of “The Ideal Husband” – by the time they wrapped the song in a rising crescendo I could barely breathe.

The encore break began with Misty on-stage alone chatting with and taking questions from the audience – his sense of humor is brilliant, and it felt more like an improvised stand-up routine.  Then the band joined him on-stage to end the night with “I Went to the Store One Day” and “Every Man Needs a Companion.”

In the end his set was a brilliant Cinema Verte-esque performance with the right balance of musicianship, satire, and sarcasm all live on-stage, drawing out the juxtaposing concepts that have made Father John Misty’s first two albums millennial classics.

Opening act Tess & Dave were so uninspired and cliche that their set was little more than a waste of time, in fact, I’ve probably already wasted too many words on them.