Staff Editor on March 16th, 2018

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Moby was in fine form and even better humor on Wednesday night at the Echo, the first of three sold-out shows in support of his new album “Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt.” Even though he needn’t have been, he was almost apologetic about a set that would include 11 of the 12 songs on the new record. “Most of the songs are off the new album,” he said wryly, “but because we’re not complete sadists we’ll be playing some old songs, too.”

Included in the new material was his take on “Like a Motherless Child” and “The Waste of Suns,” written and sung by Mindy Jones. But near the end, Moby dug deep, finishing with “Go” (originally released in 1991), 2002’s “We Are All Made of Stars” and 2013’s “Almost Home,”  which saw the whole audience joined in singing the final chorus.

Earlier, Moby said he was happy to be performing near his home base. “We wanted to play the Echo, not only because we love the Echo, but because it’s in our neighborhood and we’re provincial like that,” he said.

“I see a lot of you are taking photos and video,” he continued. “And that’s all right, but if any of you have a filter that can make me look like I have good posture … like I don’t spend my whole day hunched over my computer and my phone … Because I’m always scrolling through Instagram and I look like a Gollum.”

And when he got ready to play, someone shouted from the crowd, “You’re the sexiest Gollum.”

For the first song of the encore, Moby joked, “Me and Jimi Hendrix have one thing in common. We’ve both only had one Top 40 hit.”

And leading into “Almost Home,” he explained that “most singers end their set with their biggest song, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to end the set with what I feel is a sweet song.” Because it has an easy chorus, he suggested, “We can all sing this together and then go home and watch Netflix because of whatever detachment issues we all have.”

Photos by Annie Lesser