For the 17,500 people going to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on Saturday night, there was only one thing consuming them. How to get there. Would they drive (even people who work for the Bowl encourage you not to), would they park and ride (how does that even work?), or would they Uber it (the smart choice for many, even if a successful pick-up after the show could be chaotic)?
This logistical and existential question was all the more important because that night’s show at the Bowl was going to be truly historic. Memorable, obviously. Moving, certainly. And somewhat surprising. Joni Mitchell’s concert on Saturday (there was a second night on Sunday) had been one of the city’s most anticipated shows of the year.
For some they were the most anticipated shows of their lives. I spoke to people who’d come from Florida, from Oregon, and from New York. My friend Jane and her husband spent thousands flying to LA especially for the event (buying Garden Tickets, the best in the house), because they knew it was probably not going to happen again.
“Everyone knows this is a momentous show,” said Jane.
OK, perhaps not everyone: the young woman on the front desk of my hotel on Friday night feigned excitement when I told her why I was here. “Amazing! That’s so cool. Yeah, I’ve definitely heard of him.” I’m hoping it was my accent.
There are few things Hollywood enjoys more than a comeback, and on Saturday night at the Hollywood Bowl, Joni Mitchell had hers. It was the first time she had played Los Angeles in a quarter of a century, hampered in no small part by the aneurism she experienced nine years ago.
This took away her ability to walk and talk properly, while doctors told her she would never properly recover. However, the beloved Canadian singer-songwriter, who became one of LA’s defining voices over a long career in folk and jazz, experienced a very particular kind of rehabilitation in 2018 when some musical friends, including Elton John, started turning up at her house for what soon became known as "Joni Jams."
Mitchell started singing again, albeit haltingly, slowly, and in way recalled the voice she used on her re-recorded version of Both Sides Now in 2000. She was incredibly moved by her amorphous support group, stating that “I forgave myself for my lack of talent” (having “lost her soprano voice” and only being able to sing “a low alto”).
Her first public appearance was at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2022, where she was joined by a group of musicians including Brandi Carlile, Winona Judd and Marcus Mumford (the resulting live album won a Grammy), followed by a triumphant concert last year in Washington. It was her first ticketed performance (Newport was unannounced) since coming out of her coma, and her appearance was something few thought they’d ever see.
But her two concerts this weekend at the Hollywood Bowl felt like a genuine homecoming, as LA was where she flowered, back in the late 1960s, in Laurel Canyon, and where in the mid-1970s – in albums such as Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns – she became the city’s harshest chronicler. Along with Joan Didion, she wrote about Los Angeles’ ability to trap the wealthy and the secluded, neutering all but the most robust.
At the age of 80 she is a proper rock goddess, one who has influenced everyone from Prince, Lana Del Rey and Laura Marling to Haim, James Blake and Lorde, from Bjork, St. Vincent and Dua Lipa to Beyoncé, Cat Power and Joan as Police Woman.
And of course Harry Styles and Billie Eilish. Styles was even invited by Carlile to appear at one of the original Joni Jams. He said, “I did go to her house as she had a Christmas carol sing-along one time and it was very fun. I wasn’t gonna sing anything, and then Brandi kind of volunteered me to sing River, which was one of the more nerve-wracking moments in my life. Singing River in front of Joni Mitchell. But it was pretty special.”
As for Taylor Swift – big fan – she says Blue is her favourite Mitchell album because “it explores somebody’s soul so deeply” including “her deepest pains and most haunting remains.”
Mitchell probably hasn't been this popular since her 1970s heyday, when albums such as Blue, Ladies of the Canyon and Hejira, and epic songs such as Woodstock and Big Yellow Taxi redefined the art of the confessional singer-songwriter as well as defining a generation.
Just a few months ago the celebrated NPR (National Public Radio) journalist Ann Powers published Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, which, through extensive interviews and dogged reporting, mapped the singer's childhood battles with polio, her tempestuous musical evolution (from folk and rock through to the jazz fusion experimentations that ultimately cost her much of her audience), her tortuous love lives, and of course her reconciliation with the daughter she gave up for adoption in 1965.
In some respects she has achieved an almost saintly status, which also suggests that many people’s interest in her might be due to the fact she’s not going to be around forever. It’s true, but then this affects any performer who hits a similar age.
The capacity crowd at the Hollywood Bowl was testament to her cross-generational appeal. There were lots of people who looked as though they went to Woodstock (some of whom looked like they were wearing the same clothes), and just as many again who probably went to Coachella this year. Probably the most remarkable thing was the gender profile: 70% were women. They came with picnic hampers, wine, high expectations and big, big smiles. These were people – Joni’s people – who were not going to be disappointed.
Bang on 7pm, the stage revolved to reveal Mitchell seated in a throne-like armchair, already on stage and tapping with her walking stick. She went straight into Be Cool, a song, like many tonight, she hadn't performed in decades. Then she rattled through Harlem in Havana and Hejira, as the crowd went suitably wild.
Judging from her recent performances, many in the crowd were probably expecting her to occasionally join in with the assembled stars (including Annie Lennox, Jacob Collier and Marcus Mumford), but no, this was a proper Joni Mitchell concert, and there were few moments in the two-part, three-hour concert where she wasn’t singing her heart out. She sang the hits – Big Yellow Taxi, Coyote – and lots of deep cuts – Cherokee Louise, God Must be a Boogie Man – and none of them were disappointing. Can she sang like she did in her prime? No, but then neither can Bob Dylan, and as far as I’m aware he hasn’t had an aneurysm.
Bang on 7pm, the stage revolved to reveal Mitchell seated in a throne-like armchair, already on stage and tapping with her walking stick.
This was Brandi Carlile’s gig as much as Mitchell’s. At the Newport concert, she was criticised for being so giddy with excitement that she occasionally seemed to patronise her goddess, making, to borrow a line of Mitchell’s, “some value judgments in a self-important voice,” and had a little trouble understanding that it was Mitchelll who was the star, not her enabler. She was quieter this time, although she did come across occasionally as a besotted fangirl.
After a 30-minute interval, Mitchell returned with a bigger band, and proceeded to play Raised on Robbery, California and Ladies of the Canyon, whisking us all back to the 1970s. The smell of industrial-strength weed only added to the sensation of time travel.
She remained seated until the very end of the night, and even changed the words of Elton John's I'm Still Standing to "I’m still sitting after all this time." When someone in the crowd shouted something about Trump after her rendition of Dog Eat Dog (about those in power who "lie, cheat, skim, scam") Mitchell suddenly became animated. “Fuck Donald Trump,” she said. "Everybody get out and vote. This is an important one. I wish I could vote – I’m Canadian. I’m one of those lousy immigrants,” she said, laughing. At this point, nearly everyone stood up.
Mitchell’s music once conjured up images of tall, swaying palms, wide hot tarmac, sunglasses and bikinis, and the perpetual widescreen mythology of hot love and divine success. On Saturday, those visions were tempered with a sense of redemption.
She finished, as she needed to, with The Circle Game, a song that already reeked of poignancy before it became a testament to Mitchell's extraordinary personal story. This was a glorious night for all of us, and one that no one who was there will ever forget, especially not Joni Mitchell.
