Hanson Visit the Tiny Desk Studio

At the end of September, Hanson took a day away from their tour schedule and visited NPR’s Tiny Desk to perform for their concert series.

They played three songs spanning the last 17 years of their career as well as some songs from their soon to be released Christmas Album.

The Tiny Desk environment was a perfect setting for Hanson’s intimate informality and sense of humour and they were using the best quality studio microphone for it. They joked with their audience and told stories of how particular songs connected with significant moments in their career.

“The audience for Hanson‘s first Tiny Desk concert could be cleanly sorted into two distinct camps: the curious and the committed. The curious were the ones who’d inquired about whether the band would play its 1997 smash “MMMBop” (answer: nope), or wondered what Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson have been up to since the ’90s (answer: touring constantly, putting out records, starting their own label, raising families, launching a music festival, developing a line of Hanson Brothers-branded “MMMHops” beer). As for the committed? They were psyched.

For those who haven’t kept up, Hanson has maintained a lovingly ravenous fan base. The night before this performance, the brothers played to a joyous sold-out crowd at Silver Spring, Maryland’s 2,000-capacity Fillmore — and, it turns out, some of those 2,000 folks work at NPR. (A few even had friends fly in for the occasion.) We tried to get the committed as close to the Tiny Desk action as possible, because the vibe in the room was special.” Stephen Thompson

The tiny performance space, full of clutter and memorabilia helped to give the impression of a working space and it was almost like being at home with Hanson.

The performance was released yesterday and is available HERE