Sat. Oct. 15

Jonathan Richman: The coolest, nerdiest rocker to emerge from Natick. That, and, well, a whole lot more. He was there picking up on the Velvet Underground's cues in the early '70s with the Modern Lovers, putting ironic, sometimes dark twists on throbbing, minimalistic rock 'n' roll. And then he turned his back on that sound and band - although he re-formed different versions. Richman has been noted, really, since the 1980s for his whimsical, light, acoustic-based music. Music not without wit or occasional bite mind you. But Richman - who plays the Middle East Upstairs, three nights, wrapping up Sat. Oct. 15 with percussionist Tommy Larkins - has embraced the ethos of Neil Young's "I Am A Child," which is in no way a negative thing. That's a song of trying to be able to see the world through a child's eyes, to yearn for an optimism that seems so hard to find sometimes. Here's what happpened when we saw him last year ...   “She could have had them all, but I’m the one she came for,” crooned Richman from the Middle East upstairs stage.
   It began a yearning love song. But Richman quickly took himself out of the song to speak: “I would have made a different choice if she’d asked me, but she didn’t ask me.”
    No one in pop music does what Richman does. He sings (on mic and off), he dances, he twirls his acoustic guitar. He has a childlike joie de vivre, an optimism that captivates.   
     Richman’s 65-minute set was the first of three consecutive soldout concerts at the small club. Larkins accompanied him.
    Long gone is the ferocity and aggression of Richman’s early-mid ‘70s proto-punk Boston band the Modern Lovers.
    Richman’s calling card, for more than three decades, has been gentle acoustic music. That and his lovable, adenoidal voice. He mostly thumb-picks his guitar, and sometimes dips into Latin and Hawaiian styles. He specializes in witty, whimsical, disarmingly poignant, songs. Some are vignettes and ditties. Others have more profundity. Often, there’s a mixture.
    “I’m a man with a message,” Richman announced at one point. He then warbled, “Well you can have a cell phone, but not me.” Richman went on to sing about being unreachable at Revere Beach or on Boylston Street. Make no mistake: “If I’m on a walk I’m on a walk – you can’t call me.” He then noted how difficult it was to find a pay phone in Harvard Square now.
   One of the treats for locals is Richman likes to write and sing of his old stomping ground. There were several. One, “Twilight in Boston” was really, about nothing more than a lovely stroll about town – the Public Gardens, up Beacon into the Fens.
     Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards got a similarly affectionate, detailed, treatment, when Richman sang a new one called, well, “Keith Richards.” Richman sang of Richards’ eternal cool  – his velveteen jackets, his dirty jeans, and his “internal melodies and minor 6th harmonies.” Richman spiked the song with a riff from “Brown Sugar.”
    The best pairing was the two songs about artists, “No One Was Like Vermeer” and a re-jiggered “Pablo Picasso,” the only song played from the Modern Lovers era.
   The most straight-out sentimental number was his encore, “Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love.” The title said it all.

 Tix: $15. He's on at 8.

472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambriddge, 671-864-3278 www.mideastclub.com