Watch MJ Lenderman and his Wednesday bandmate Karly Hartzman separately cover Counting Crows’ ‘A Long December’

nme.com:

MJ Lenderman treated his fans to a cover of Counting Crow‘s ‘A Long December’ at his show last week.The musician took over The Orange Peel in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina last Friday (December 20), as one of his rescheduled shows due to the damage caused by Hurricane Helene back in October.The show was in support of his latest album ‘Manning Fireworks‘ and saw him and his band – The Wind, which features Lenderman’s Wednesday bandmate Xandy Chelmis – play a string of tracks from that LP including ‘Joker Lips’, ‘Rudolph’, ‘Wristwatch’ and more.To close out the gig, Lenderman treated the crowd to a rendition of Counting Crows‘ 1996 track ‘A Long December’, a fitting song considering the natural disaster North Carolina had recently faced.As per Stereogum, his cover followed his other Wednesday bandmate, vocalist Karly Hartzman performing her own rendition of ‘A Long December’.

The moment took place during a gig at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, North Carolina on December 17, where she was joined by Wednesday bassist Ethan Baechtold.Unlike Lenderman’s version, which felt true to the original song, Hartzman took a stripped-back approach and performed an acoustic version of the track, making the song much more emotional than it already is.The track was first released on December 2 1996 as the second single from Counting Crows’ second album ‘Recovering the Satellites’.

It peaked at Number Five on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks Chart and Number One on the Canadian RPM 100 Hit Tracks charts.

The following year, the song was re-released in the UK and peaked at Number 68 on the charts.In other news, Lenderman recently joined the lineup for ØYA Festival‘s 2025 edition, alongside Chappell Roan, Khruangbin and Wet.