JAWNY rolled into San Diego to kick off his first headlining tour. Discovering his music through Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist with the song “Best Thing” and I was hooked ever since then. Being his first show of the tour and especially in San Diego, attending this show was a must. Being in the midst of quarantine, you could say I was risking my life for this show but like they always say, “The show must go on”.

What’s so cool about JAWNY? Well let me break it down from the beginning. JAWNY started out under the moniker Johnny Utah, a reference to the 1991 film Point Break. His first EP under that name dropped in 2018 but it wasn’t until he dropped the song “Honeypie,” in 2019 that blew him up. This led him to signing with Interscope, where he finally changed his stage name to what it is today aka JAWNY. With all of this happening, he was finally able to leave his rinky dink place in the east coast and now resides in LA.

JAWNY’s debut EP with Interscope, For Abby, dropped last year in 2020, and his latest EP, The Story of Hugo, was released recently in July. Ready to promote his latest music and meet fans, new and old, he set his sights to go on tour which i’m making history in being a part of. The anticipation was at an-all time high at least for me with his show being the first concert i’ve attended since quarantine started. Before JAWNY could even go on however, the opener Vanillaroma performed.

Surprsingly I knew of the band since one of the members went to the same college as me. I never expected this show to be where I would first listen to them but they surprised me. For what the band lacked in polish, they had in spades with charisma. The band left an impression on me as I listened to their songs after the show and I must say, “Check Your Optimism” is a banger. Their set was well-received but now everyone was waiting for JAWNY to come onto stage.

When JAWNY finally got on stage, he graced everyone with long, luscious blonde hair that was overflowing his shoulders and the crowd went wild. First impressions of JAWNY from how he sounded and the humor he projected on stage gave him a Michael Cera-like vibe. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol or his outfit but he had this Joe Exotic look too and i’m not sure if that was what he was going for since Tiger King is pretty popular or it was pure coincidence. Nonetheless, his aesthetics rocked as hard as his music did.

JAWNY opened up his set with a banger of a song in the name of “Take It Back,” one of my favorite tracks off The Story of Hugo EP. Unfortunately his guitar wasn’t working for the song but he told everyone in the crowd to believe that he would’ve shredded the solo. Immediately after, he performed “Honeypie” which was a bit of a surprise since that’s one of his most popular songs but he’s playing it second on the setlist. There were a few technical difficulties throughout the set but JAWNY made sure to banter with the crowd to keep them at ease.

The show had many memorable moments for me ranging from him having a lot of wrestling references in his songs with even one named “Vince McMahon”, him feeding off the crowd’s energy, doing a cover of The Killers’ “When We Were Young”, and an “Ayyy i’m walking here” joke. There was so much to unpack from his set but it was so much fun even with some of the technical difficulties. Some of my favorite songs from the set were “Vince McMahon”, an unreleased song he called “Death is a DJ”, and his encore song “Best Thing”. He even played encores of “Honeypie” and “Take It Back” to end the night.

Overall, seeing JAWNY live was a sight to behold. He did the best he can with performing while quarantine restrictions were loosening up and with the technical difficulties. I’m sure the next time I see him live, it’s going to twice as hard which i’m excited for. I know what you’re all thinking though. Would I risk my life to see him perform again? Hell yeah.