Low Cut Connie isn’t keeping quiet about finding it hard to be livin’ in the USA

You’re never too many songs into a Low Cut Connie show when bandleader Adam Weiner runs his hands across the piano keys and declares, “I love everybody in this room right now.” He’s also fond of declaring, “I love you so much, boys and girls.” He says it because he genuinely means it, it’s not a line, it’s not even shtick. Weiner says it repeatedly because it’s the vibe he wants to create in the room he’s working in. It’s corny, sure, but it’s also sincere and true. 

He’s trying to bring this room of people together, folks who may have nothing else in common other than the fact that they decided they wanted to spend their time and money going to see Low Cut Connie on this particular night as the band traverses the U.S. on their summer tour. He could just get up there and play 20 songs with his fantastic band, and most people would go home happy, but that would not be a Connie show. 

First and foremost, a Low Cut Connie show is an insane amount of high-octane energy. The first sign to the uninitiated that this show is going to be different is when the road crew wheels out Weiner’s battle-scarred, road-worn upright piano onstage (named Nellie) and places it front and center. This is not a concert in which the lead singer will occasionally tinkle the ivories for effect. This is a rock and roll band whose main engine is the expansive sound of an actual piano, played with authority, command and a prodigious amount of energy. He will also use it as a prop: he (and other bandmates, like boisterous backing singer Amanda “Rocky” Bullwinkel) will stand on it, lean on it, balance on one foot on top of the piano bench while playing it. Nellie has definitely seen some things.

Low Cut Connie songs always feel like you already know them. “Dirty Water,” from 2017’s “Dirty Pictures (Part 1),” segues into T Rex, because that riff is absolutely a loving borrow from Marc Bolan. Other numbers that stood out on a Sunday night in Detroit included “Big Boy,” from the most recent album, 2023’s “Art Dealers,” which simultaneously shakes, rolls and shimmies, while the plaintive ballad “Help Me” hits you in the heart strings. “Boozophilia” once made Barack Obama’s summer playlist. There’s always some small familiar note or line or feeling that draws you into the song, and then once you’re there, they’re strong enough on their own accord that you’re singing along by the second chorus.

Other things that happen at a Low Cut Connie show: waiting for that first moment when Weiner decides that he’s leaving the stage and going out into the audience. This isn’t some kind of ceremonial, carefully choreographed crowd walk, either; he will do this multiple times over the course of the night. Weiner hugs the people he knows, greets the fans he recognizes with smiles and handshakes, goofs with the ever-present stoic dudes who stand there expressionless, arms folded, and he is going to do something that will make them drop their defenses and crack a smile. He is going to pose for selfies and high-five anyone who asks. 

Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie performs during the 52nd Annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at Fair Grounds Race Course on May 07, 2023, in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Tim Mosenfelder/WireImage/Getty Images)Venturing out into the audience during the show is hardly a new innovation in rock and roll, but it is wielded by Weiner with purpose. The interaction accomplishes multiple goals: it’s a way of acknowledging the people who showed up early to get the best places down front, and it also brings in the outer edges of the audience into the show, shifting an observer into a participant. You’re completely unable to have a passive reaction to what’s going on in front of you when a sweaty man from South Philadelphia wearing a white undershirt and some kind of gaudy gold necklace flings an arm around you and gently kisses the top of your head. Weiner is not letting anyone get away with holding back, not if he can help it. 

The other thing those sorties into the audience every night accomplish is that they bring people not just closer to the band, but also to each other. At that moment, you’re not in a crowd of 400 people staring at the stage at the end of the room, but as the crowd follows Weiner’s wanderings, they turn to face him and then, in the process, face each other. 

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Weiner’s songs have always celebrated the people on the edges, the weirdos and the freaks. He sees them — his band is named after one of them — and he celebrates them. Even if you don’t see yourself identically reflected in the specific story being told, there’s a sense that everyone is welcome here. That’s not a new quality to a Connie show, but if you’ve seen them before, there’s even more of an all-inclusive vibe than you may have experienced in the past. And that’s by design.

“Detroit. So you got, like, Mohawk lesbians, you got gay and trans people in the front, you got an 80-year-old working-class dude, you got everything in between,” Weiner tells Salon a few days after a recent show in the Motor City. “And you have to put on a show that everybody can get into. When I was a little younger and the world was different, it was easier to do . . . I could just play ‘Sh*t, Shower, and Shave’ (from 2011’s “Get out the Lotion”) and everybody would enjoy it.”

Weiner continues: “But now the stakes are so high and people’s lives are affected so much. And I have stakes that are high for me, and my reputation is out there, and my name is out there, and people know me now. It’s a different show. And I have to speak to it. I guess I don’t have to, I want to. But I don’t feel like I can do a proper show anymore without saying something.” 

Saying something is what happened when Weiner made the decision to cancel a March gig at Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center. Back in February, at the start of the tour, Weiner made the decision that he could no longer perform at the venue and issued a public statement. It read, in part:

“I was very excited to perform as part of this wonderful institution’s Social Impact series, which emphasizes community, joy, justice and equity through the arts. Upon learning that this institution that has run non-partisan for 54 years is now chaired by President Trump himself and his regime, I decided I will not perform there. Our Little rock and roll act stands for diversity, inclusion and truth-telling. 

My extended Low Cut Connie community includes black, white, gay, straight, transgender, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist and immigrant individuals — all of whom are wonderful upstanding Americans. Many of these folks will be directly negatively affected by this Administration’s policies and messaging.”

He ended the statement by saying, “Maybe my career will suffer from this decision, but my soul will be the better for it.”

Weiner explains, “I called my agent first and I said, ‘I just want you to know’ — we’ve only been together six months or seven months at this point — and I said, ‘I really don’t want to upset you but I’m probably gonna cancel this show that you guys booked and you really stuck your neck out to get the show at the Kennedy Center.’

“Apparently I wasn’t the only artist of theirs playing the Kennedy Center, but I was the only one calling them and saying, ‘I think I’m going to cancel.’ I don’t think that’s that interesting of a story. I don’t think that should be unique.

“When I put my statement out, I was the first,” Weiner continues. “That’s the part I think is maddening. I shouldn’t have been the first one. There should have been 50 other artists that canceled the same day.”

Audiences have noticed. “The first two months, I’d say, six weeks or so after that, every single night I’d come on stage and people would be screaming ‘thank you.’ It was the biggest media reach thing associated with me, bigger than me with Obama,” Weiner explains. “It’s so strange, so weird. Sky News interviewed me, Germany, France, The New York Times, Washington Post, on and on and on. It’s been really strange, doing this thing that has nothing to do with my music whatsoever.”

He continues, “I find it maddening that I’m like, ‘Am I crazy?’ Like, I’m not doing something crazy here. This seems like the logical thing that you should do in this situation. So for me to get on stage in front of a group of people in 2025 in America, every single night, looking out at them, thinking about what’s going on, understanding that that’s what they’re thinking about, it’s crazy to just say nothing.”

Part of this is the matter-of-fact story Weiner tells halfway through the show, before a charming ditty called “The Fu*kin You Get for the Fu*kin You Got.” He explains that his first job was playing piano at a drag karaoke bar in New York City: “I learned about life. I learned about love. I learned how to tweeze my t-zone,” he says, as the crowd laughs. “Being around a bunch of drag queens performing is nothing but love. And anybody who says otherwise has never been to a real drag bar.” He then explains that the song was inspired by a conversation he overheard from two of his coworkers, and requests the crowd’s participation in the chorus. It goes over gangbusters.

Weiner explains, “This year, this tour, I put the story in front of it, about my first gig and the drag bar, and it actually raises the stakes. And I think what really works about it is that you think I’m about to sing this song that’s like a queer anthem, they think I’m about to play ‘Shake It, Little Tina,’ about the guy who used to dress up as Tina Turner, but I don’t do that. I set it up, stakes are high, people are, like, ‘Yes! Yes!’ and then I play ‘The Fu*kin’ You Get…’ and it has this nice slingshot effect. It opens people up and then all of a sudden they’re laughing, and it’s like you get them at their most open.”

“I know from experience that humor is the most powerful tool,” Weiner says. “It’s not always the right tool to reach for, but if you can, it’s the most disarming tool that you have . . . I don’t need to give a speech and say, ‘I stand with my LGBTQ+ community.’ And me talking about walking in a drag bar and saying, ‘Anybody who’s never been to a drag bar, you need to go.’ It does the job. It does the job better.”

But there’s also Low Cut Connie’s latest release, a protest song called “Livin’ in the USA.” It opens with Weiner on piano and a gorgeous string arrangement: “Livin’ in the USA, but it ain’t my home / My kinda people ain’t never gonna leave us alone.” It’s a gut punch, but it’s not supposed to be soothing. 

Weiner doesn’t have an album coming out in 2025, but plans to keep dropping solo singles throughout the rest of the year. “The best thing you can ever do is to write a song and put out a song that touches a nerve. And I don’t mean that in terms of its success. I mean that in terms of how it resonates with people,” he says. “There have been a couple tiny moments where I put a song out that touched a little bit of a nerve. One of those times was ‘Private Lives.’ We had just started quarantining and I put this song out and people were like, ‘This is an anthem for how we are right now.’ Then I had this song, ‘Help Me,’ that came out right after it. People were struggling with mental health and all this kind of thing . . . Those were a couple moments where I got the experience of putting a song out that felt current. I have to get it out.”