Life on the road isn’t always glamorous. Consider Emile Mosseri’s diet before playing his first solo show at The Chapel: A donut, cereal, and half an ice cream sandwich, the last of which came courtesy of a generous Dolores Park picnicker.
He and his band had spent the previous night in Redding. The night before that, they were in Portland. Before that, Seattle. The cycle of sleeping, driving, and performing was draining, Mosseri said, but San Francisco brought a new energy.
After changing into a soft jacket with embroidered irises, he flitted around backstage. “Is it 9:01 yet?” he asked repeatedly. Going on at 8:59 for a 9 p.m. show, he explained, would be a “little desperate.”
At 9:01 on the dot, he bounded out through a smoke-filled entranceway to the stage. He’d forgotten a guitar pick, so he asked the audience. He leaned down to grab one offered triumphantly by someone at the front.
The crowd was attentive when he was singing, spirited when he wasn’t; much of Mosseri’s music involves soft strumming and delicate piano notes, and the listeners closed their eyes and swayed. Even playful songs had a cinematic quality.
On “you & your boyfriend,” Mosseri sang about a man who asks his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend to move in with him.
“You and your boyfriend can come live with me,” Mosseri crooned, sagging over his computer like a woeful Jack Skellington. (Danny Elfman’s music, he said earlier, was one of his inspirations.) “Please, let’s be civilized, why not live with your two favorite guys?”
The crowd laughed between lines, a change from the Seattle show. Maybe too many people there could relate, Mosseri joked.
When he said he’d sung into three microphones at once in Seattle, the audience yelled at him to sing into four. He happily dragged over a drum mic, and obliged.
Mosseri thinks he’s particularly sensitive to his audience. “I’ll find the one guy that doesn’t look like he’s having fun and just play for him,” he grinned.
This life isn’t new for Mosseri. Most of his 20s and 30s were spent on tour with his indie band, The Dig. But a lot has changed.
Eight years ago, the musician moved to Los Angeles and began scoring films. His debut with 2019’s award-winning “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” was lauded as a “fairy-tale score.” His second score, for 2020’s “Minari,” earned him an Oscar nomination.
Then his daughter was born. At 3 years old, Mosseri said, she’s already a budding performer who loves Chappell Roan and Mick Jagger. She’s been raised on a Randy Newman Pixar soundtrack; the Pandora’s box that is the “Frozen” soundtrack’s infectious hits hasn’t been opened yet.
Touring again for his sophomore solo album is a bit like putting on a wet bathing suit and jumping in the pool, Mosseri says. “It’s nice. But getting back into it is a bit of an adjustment.”
The Dig started out performing in their school cafeteria and cul-de-sacs of suburban New York. In time, they went from “playing shows to nobody” to opening for one of Mosseri’s favorite bands, The Walkmen.
They played The Chapel just once. Still, there’s something special about returning to San Francisco.
It “always felt so fantastical,” the composer said ahead of Tuesday’s concert, looking out at the sunbathers sprawled on the slopes of Dolores Park. He paused as a man wearing a matching T-shirt-and-shorts set with a neon green marijuana leaf pattern walked by advertising “magic mushrooms.”
“No, thanks,” Mosseri answered serenely. “Sounds nice, though.”
This was mostly a polite affirmation. Mosseri doesn’t even drink alcohol on tour anymore, “just Pedialyte.”
“Now, my life is a lot more structured and a lot more healthy,” he said as he leaned back on a worn sweatshirt he laid on the grass. “This tour — minus the alcohol — is like injecting my life with some of the syrup from the old days, which is nice.”
Much of the connection Mosseri feels to San Francisco is due to his people here, like “Last Black Man” director Joe Talbot, who he calls his San Francisco “sherpa.” Or his brother, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, and nephews, to whom Tuesday’s set was dedicated.
The band had tried to think of individual songs that would be appropriate to play in honor of a 7-year-old, but “it gets weird, lyrically,” Mosseri decided.
Tuesday’s show was the kids’ first concert, not counting Taylor Swift. “That’s a tough bar,” Mosseri told the audience before easing into a melodic, very un-pop-star-esque song. “But we’re going to get it.”
A cover of “Sign on the Window,” a Bob Dylan song “about domestic bliss,” ended the show. The next day, the band began their last leg, returning to Mosseri’s own domestic bliss at home in Los Angeles for a final show. Mosseri will travel again to Europe in April.
“The cost to your life to be on tour is talked about all the time, and it’s real,” he acknowledged before performing. Still, he welcomed the chance to take a “dip” into his former life and, literally, embrace old friends.
“We’re here in Dolores Park. It’s beautiful,” he said. “When you’re touring, when that’s a part of your life, your world expands.”
