St. Vincent Gets Sultry and Jason Isbell Covers John Prine, but Bartees Strange’s Mom Steals the Show at Jack Antonoff’s Ally Coalition Concert

Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Phoebe Bridgers, the 1975’s Matty Healy… those aren’t just artists that Jack Antonoff has collaborated with over the years, they’re people who have performed at the annual Ally Coalition Talent Show benefit concert he and his sister Rachel stage in New York each year. And while the concert delivers a wildly entertaining night of music and humor every year, that’s also the track record that, whether anyone’s saying it or not, he’s expected to somehow match or top with each successive show, all in the name of adding to the more than $2 million in funding the concerts have raised to support unhouse LGBTQ+ youth. Not a small challenge!

But rise to it he does, and the ninth annual concert this year featured such guests as St. Vincent, Jason Isbell, Bartees Strange — joined by his mother, who brought the house down with her vocal stylings — Clairo and of course Antonoff’s own band Bleachers, along with, as usual, a selection of top-shelf comics like Sarah Sherman — the self-described “most queer looking straight member of ‘SNL’” — Chris Laker, Sam Jay and Jacqueline Novak. Best of all, this year’s event, held at New York University’s Skirball Center, raised a record $430,000.

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The shows, usually staged in late December, are always loose (Strange played with three different artists on this night) and holiday themed, and often feature rare covers or unusual arrangements; this year’s was no exception. Bleachers have a new album coming in March so it’s not surprising that this year’s show centered around them more than usual. Just before 8:30, Antonoff took the stage solo and, after a quick wave to the audience, sat at the piano and launched straight into his 2017 song “Goodmorning,” with the crowd singing the “woah-ohs” (as they would on most Bleachers songs on the night).

After a pair of songs from Andrew Dost, Antonoff’s erstwhile bandmate in Fun, Baltimore-reared singer-songwriter Bartees Strange took the stage and immediately introduced his mother, Donna Mitchell-Cox, who sang with him on a cover of “Summertime” with a voice that soared all over the scale — in other words, she totally upstaged her son, with his full approval. “She’s like, ridiculous,” he laughed, and three more performers that night would mention not having mothers to bring who could sing like that. He then launched into one of his own songs (sorry, writing in the dark sometimes means illegibility) that showed off the depth of his own vocal range and some rocked-up guitar soloing that isn’t always prominent on his recordings.

Next up was Jason Isbell, who played a pair of his own songs as well as a cover of John Prine’s classic “Hello in There,” which he prefaced with a self-deprecating story about first meeting Antonoff “at the Grammys” several years ago — “which sounds like the douchiest sentence ever, ‘I met Jack Antonoff at the Grammy Awards,’” he joked. He recalled the geeked young producer introducing himself and asking Isbell if he knew Prine personally — and then begged to be introduced to him. “I thought, ‘This guy’s OK, we’re gonna get along,’” he recalled, before turning a shade more serious and referencing Prine’s death from Covid-related symptoms in 2020, “I think enough time has passed since John moved on for me to be able to sing this song without breaking into pieces,” he said, “so I’m gonna try.” He then launched into a gorgeous version of the song that fully lived up to that introduction.

Turning humorous, Isbell was also one of the performers who referenced Strange’s mom, saying that his own mother would have done the same thing but could not sing without being a “half tone above or below the [correct] note” and loved Journey so much that a teen Isbell hid her cassettes.

Antonoff then returned to the stage and took the piano, saying “Alright let’s bring this shit home,” and launched into the group’s 2014 song “I Wanna Get Better” — but had to crowd-source the lyrics to the second verse, which he’d forgotten the beginning of. Considering the crowd’s enthusiasm, it took a surprisingly long time: “We had a collective moment there!” He then played a song premiered at last year’s show, a sardonic holiday ballad called “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call,” which he said he’d still not finished.

The group was then joined by Claud, a young singer-songwriter signed to Phoebe Bridgers’ label, for a pair of songs, the latter featuring a guest acoustic guitar solo from Jack’s father. Then Clairo came up and attempted a Vashti Bunyan cover but begged off halfway through, pleading a case of nerves, and then was joined by the band for a version of her own song “Blouse.”

The audience was then perplexed as a white table and three chairs were brought onstage; Antonoff sat at one of them as a roadie set a keyboard in front of him along with a laptop and drum machine at the other side — the duo Red Hearse then took the stage and played a pair of electronic-based hip-hop songs, very different in style from the rest of the evening’s music, with Antonoff adding shading on the synth.

He then called the evening’s final guest to the stage: St. Vincent, glad in a black cocktail dress covered by a long flowered robe, who joked around with Antonoff before going full Annie Lennox on “At the Holiday Party,” showing a sultriness and soufulness that isn’t as evident on the recording. The rest of the musicians then vacated the stage and the pair of them delivered slow version of her song “New York.”

After a long thanks and one final song, featuring the performers’ names freestyled into the verses, Antonoff thanked the audience and wished everyone happy holidays, right at the 11:00 mark.

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