Last Saturday, Joni Mitchell took to the stage for her first headline show in 23 years – an event that turned out to be a three-hour celebration of Mitchell's music, which saw the folk legend perform next to a handful of special guests.
It was Mitchell’s first live appearance since her surprise cameo at last year’s Newport Folk Festival, but her first full headline set since 2000, and was made all the more notable given the fact a headline concert from Mitchell seemed implausible just a few years ago.
Mitchell’s 2022 Newport Festival cameo came seven years after she suffered a brain aneurysm that rendered her unable to walk or talk, and that robbed her of the ability to play the electric guitar.
Having relearned the instrument by watching videos of her performances online over the past few years, Mitchell made her comeback at the Gorge Amphitheater in Washington in truly awe-inspiring fashion.
The 24-song setlist spanned three hours, and saw Mitchell share the spotlight with a multitude of special guests, including Brandi Carlile, Marcus Mumford, Celisse Henderson, Annie Lennox and more, who interspersed Mitchell's performances with covers of their own.
As expected, the list of highlights is near endless, but it was Mitchell’s encore containing a rendition of her 2007 cut, If – performed from the fretboard of a Parker Fly Concert model – that particularly stood out to guitar fans.
It wasn’t just the angular axe – also used by the likes of Kiko Loureiro, Adrian Belew and David Lynch – that caught eyes and ears, though. The song itself is a classic example of Mitchell’s expansive acoustic imagination, recruiting an unorthodox open tuning to help accommodate the artist’s dreamy harmonics and trademark vocals.
For the show last Saturday, Mitchell locked into If’s open Cm11 tuning – C-G-Bb-Eb-F-Bb – and made her way through the track’s percussive strums, which were carried by the Parker Fly Concert’s hidden, ultra-clean piezo pickup.
It was an inspiring showcase of Mitchell's reacquired guitar powers, and a powerful testament to the folk titan's musical journey over the past few years.
If turned out to be the penultimate track of the night, for which Mitchell assumed lead vocal and guitar duties, before closing out the night with a cover of Johnny Richards’ Young at Heart.
Earlier in the evening – which was modeled on Mitchell’s famous “Joni Jams”, hosted at her LA home – Mitchell and co performed songs from across her storied repertoire, such as Shine, The Circle Game and many more.
As per The Guardian, the evening was also one of storytelling, with Mitchell also treating the crowd to many anecdotes from her musical career – including one that involved her forgetting and making up a verse to a Bob Dylan song while on tour with Dylan and Van Morrison.
