Motion City Soundtrack delights audiences with intimate performance

With no fanfare and no introduction, a diminutive figure in an orange and blue beanie walks into the center of the VCU compass and puts down his guitar case. Onlookers flock to the unassuming man as he liberates his guitar from its case and begins to tune. Unshaven and dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, he could easily have been mistaken for another onlooker, if not for his instrument.

This unassuming young man was Justin Pierre, ringmaster of popular pop-punk outfit Motion City Soundtrack. Three of the five current members of MCS, vocalist/guitarist Pierre, bassist Matt Taylor and synthesizer/keyboard player Jesse Johnson, were present Tuesday evening, to perform an impromptu acoustic show in the center of Monroe Park Campus. The show was announced fewer than two hours earlier via the Motion City Soundtrack Twitter account, and drew a crowd of around 60 to 70 people.

Pierre has been on the trail for the past few weeks, touring without the rest of the band, doing small, spontaneous acoustic shows, radio interviews media encounters across the country, including a similar on-campus show at George Washington University earlier that day. All of this is in preparation for the band’s upcoming headlining tour with Weezer and Jack’s Mannequin starting in December, to celebrate its newest album “My Dinosaur Life,” slated for release January 19. “We haven’t toured since Tony (Thaxton, dums) broke his arm, so we’re really excited,” Johnson said after Tuesday night’s set.

The performance came and went without a single mention of the new album. Justin and company chose instead to treat fans to an evening of old and new MCS material, including “Everything Is Alright,” “Fell In Love Without You,” and the band’s new single “Disappear.” The young front man seemed right at home in the center of a throng of fans as he exchanged wit and kind words. At one point, between songs, Pierre broke into a rendition of “Last Person” by Jenny Owen Young, singing with one young woman, the only person in the audience who knew the song.

Pierre performed with a little help on a keyboard that looked like it had been dug out of the back of a music department closet. “This is a beautiful machine.” Taylor joked, as he tried to configure the output correctly in the dark, with aid from resident keyboardist Johnson. Pierre took requests throughout, often adding caveats such as “but only if you guys sing everything, even the guitar solos,” when asked to play fan favorites like “The Future Freaks Me Out.”

“Justin’s been doing these shows for a while. This is the first time we’ve done any,” Johnson said. Taylor and Thraxton are both Richmond natives, and played in Richmond-based band Submerge before being added to the band’s roster after the departure of the original rhythm section in 2002.

Motion City Soundtrack is surely wowing old fans and garnering some new ones with this type of down-to-earth display of respect for its followers. Pierre spent the whole evening interacting with fans, signing every autograph and taking every picture with a smile. Tuesday night’s performance was the embodiment of what modern music should be, with musicians giving back to the fans and asking nothing but loyalty in return.