AJR honors late father, Carly Rae Jepsen overcomes tech issues, at Milwaukee's Summerfest

Pop band of brothers AJR brought lots of bells, whistles and whimsy to the American Family Insurance Amphitheater Thursday night for Summerfest.

But one of the most thrilling moments across their two-hour Milwaukee show was a low-tech staring contest.

Looking out over the crowd, frontman Jack Met noticed a sign that read "Staring Contest for Jack's Hat," a reference to the winter-ready cap he wears at every show, promo shoot and music video. Met accepted the challenge, inviting two brothers, Wyatt and Blake, to come up on the stage.

Met invited the preteen (or early teen) Wyatt to kneel directly in front of him for the face-off. Met stared at his young challenger stone-faced, immense intensity in his eyes, but Wyatt, fueled by crowd cheers for his name, didn't flinch, cracking a smile, stifling a laugh but never taking a blink. And after about 30 seconds, Met was defeated, the boys rewarded with two Met-style hats.

"Get out of here guys, I don't like losing," Met quipped. "I can't see after that."

It was the kind of playful fan interaction that has taken AJR from playing for about 100 people in the basement in the Rave for their first Milwaukee show — as Jack Met recalled on stage — to performing for more than 12,500 people as Summerfest's premier headliner Thursday.

But it was hardly the only one. I'd estimate about 50% of big pop shows have a moment where artists play a couple of songs on a small stage in the middle of the arena or amphitheater. But AJR did something far better Thursday.

Jack, his brothers Adam and Ryan, and their three touring musicians sat among fans in Section 210 to play stripped-back versions of "World's Smallest Violin" and "Steve's Going to London" that were more electric than their ultra-slick, highly produced studio renditions.

It was emblematic of the kind of distinct, unforgettable touch that AJR demonstrated at their last tour, which included an American Family Insurance Amphitheater show in 2022, that sets them apart.

A couple of cleverly constructed, smartly executed set pieces from that tour returned Thursday but with some variations. A recurring bit in which Jack Met sings on a treadmill, interacts with digital objects on a screen and mimes eight digital doppelgangers was back again, this time with new animations, and set to a new song ("Yes I'm a Mess" from last year's "The Maybe Man" album).

And AJR once again offered a staged demonstration of how one of their songs gets made, adding and manipulating bass drum, hi-hat sounds, trumpet, violin, and even spliced together audio from home movies to come up with "Way Less Sad."

But there were new imaginative showstoppers — like about 10 real-life Jack Met doppelgangers taking turns singing with their backs to the audience on stage for opening song "Maybe Man," or a goofy drum duet Jack Met had with his animated shadow projected behind him for their biggest hit "Bang!"

Arguably, the best set piece came for "Karma," when Jack Met, suspended in air behind a transparent screen, appeared to be floating in space, then plummeting to Earth, at one point spinning around in the wake of an airplane, and in another moment, floating gently holding on to a bunch of digital balloons. There also was a far less successful bit, in which the band pretended that a spotlight fell on the stage, halting the show during "100 Bad Days," but ultimately the stunt just created confusion and stunted the momentum of one of the show's last songs.

But behind all the theatrics — visual and, in the case of the band's winking, Broadway-inspired pop songs, musical — Jack Met is often singing about anxiety, struggling for happiness and other relatable topics that also have helped elevate them to Summerfest's-biggest-stage-headliner status. One "Maybe Man" song, "God Is Really Real," saw Jack Met singing about his ailing father who's too sick to get out of bed.

The brothers' father, Gary Metzger, was gravely ill last year, passing away last July. In fact, AJR was supposed to play two Summerfest shows in the amphitheater last year — initially as an opener for Imagine Dragons, and then their own headlining show in place of an ailing Jimmy Buffett (who also died last year) — before canceling those shows after their father's health took a turn for the worst.

Before the grand finale, Jack Met talked a bit about their father. "Up until last year, our dad said, 'Keep going, and eventually, one day, you will find some people that see the world like you do.' He was right, and now he's gone."

"My dad had his flaws, but one thing you can say about him is that he was really, truly, unapologetically himself," Jack Met continued. "And on his last day alive, we were in the hospital. … We asked him what his biggest piece of life advice was. And he said, 'Don't even spend one second of your life not being yourself. Go be the biggest version of yourself.'"

Thursday at Summerfest, AJR did just that.

Carly Rae Jepsen, mxmtoon opened

“The crowd is perfect,” an effusive Carly Rae Jepsen proclaimed during her hourlong opening set Thursday. Unfortunately, her sound was far from it.

Jepsen apologized a couple of times for technical difficulties that led to elongated pauses during the set, and the blaring low-end all but drowned out early set songs like “Now That I Found You” and midpoint tunes like “Kollage” with hideous, rattling bass (at least from where I was sitting, close to center in the lower bowl).

But Jepsen’s literally bouncy energy was unflappable, aided by some fireworks, a flashy band (including a sax player who dropped to their knees for “Run Away With Me”), and a lot of irresistible hooks, including the vibrating ‘80s keys for “Shy Boy” and the disco-kissed shimmer for “The Loneliest Time.”

Those songs, from full-length albums released in 2022 and 2023, showed that Jepsen’s pop songwriting skills are still sharp. But 2012 juggernaut “Call Me Maybe” definitively will remain the signature. For this Summerfest crowd, it was the perfect singalong.

Initial opener Mxmtoon had a special guest during her 40-minute set — “The White Lotus” star, and Stifler’s Mom, Jennifer Coolidge. OK, so it actually was just Mxmtoon doing a Coolidge impersonation, but it was spot on. If you had your eyes closed you would have sworn it was Coolidge herself reciting her famous hot dog line from “Legally Blonde.”

It was a crowd-pleasing trick, but as she demonstrated Thursday, not her greatest talent. Aptly describing her catalog as “songs about being sad that don’t sound sad at all,” Mxmtoon’s cute and catchy pop tunes (ukuleles were involved), exhibiting a similar self-awareness to AJR's, caught on in a big way, with fans cheering for her unapologetically dorky dance moves for “Sad Disco” and “Dance (End of the World).”

Anyone wanting a hot dog — or Saz’s sampler platter — real bad seemingly opted to wait until the break to get one.

More: Here's the Summerfest 2024 lineup by date, time and stage for the Milwaukee music festival

More: Mariah the Scientist, Mt. Joy, and best and worst of Summerfest 2024's Day 7 in Milwaukee

AJR's Summerfest setlist

1. "Maybe Man"
2. "Sober Up"
3. "Yes I'm a Mess"
4. "I Won't"/"Birthday Party"
5. "The DJ Is Crying For Help"
6. "God Is Really Real"
7. "The Good Part"
8. "Bang!"
9. "Inertia"
10. "Touchy Feely Fool"
11. "Karma"
12. "Turning Out"/"Turning Out Pt. ii"/"Turning Out Pt. iii"
13. "World's Smallest Violin"
14. "Steve's Going to London"
15. "Burn the House Down"
16. "Way Less Sad"
17. "Don't Throw Out My Legos"
18. "100 Bad Days"
19. "Weak"
20. "2085"

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com . Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: AJR honors late father, Carly Rae Jepsen overcomes tech issues, at Milwaukee's Summerfest