I saw The Music of Hey Arnold Live! and it was awesome

If you ask a Hey Arnold! fan what they love about the show, they’ll probably cite the cartoon’s startling emotional depth. Arnold, the titular protagonist whose oblong noggin made him an icon on arrival, has a big heart and a willingness to help everyone around him, from his friends and classmates to the eclectic cast of characters that populate the fictitious city of Hillwood.

Despite being a children’s show, Hey Arnold! never shied away from addressing heavy topics (including poverty, addiction, and family separation) and a key component in the show’s emotional heft was its dynamic, jazz-inspired soundtrack composed by Jim Lang. From the theme song to the end credits, Lang’s music for the show is snazzy, sentimental, and ridiculously sticky, rife with melodies you might find yourself humming hours or years later.

It makes sense then, that when I arrived at Le Poisson Rouge for the first of two sold-out Tuesday night performances of The Music of Hey Arnold! Live by Lang and the PS 118 All Stars, the line was wrapped around the corner, men in beanies and women dressed as Helga Pataki slowly filing past Carbone. Inside, LPR was legitimately packed, the crowd so dense we had to give up trying to push through to our VIP table and settle for a standing spot in the back.

Later, the band's tour manager pulled us into the control booth for a better view of the stage, but even with an obstructed sight line, Lang & co.’s funky free jazz was undeniable. Joined by Nick Kirgo on guitar, Ben Flocks on saxophone, Corbin Jones on bass, and Aaron Serfaty on drums, Lang offered up a warm, loose jam session. Series creator Craig Bartlett also joined the crew for a few numbers, strumming an acoustic guitar and singing Sinatra-style in character as Dino Spumoni.

Nostalgia is of course a major draw for the Millennial crowd, but it would be a disservice to pigeonhole The Music of Hey Arnold! Live as fan service. Lang’s score for Hey Arnold! was dictated by the action on screen, meaning compositions with extremely short runtimes, sometimes not even 30 seconds long. On stage, he joked that for a child, even two minutes feels like forever.

Lang re-arranged and extended his original work for this 26-date tour, and if it wasn’t for the cartoon backdrops projected behind the PS 118 All Stars and the occasional cosplayer, it might have felt like just another night at a nice New York jazz club. (Lang would probably demur — in interviews across the years, he tends to say jazz musicians are more studied and practiced than he sees his self-taught approach).

It helps too, that the sentiment of Hey Arnold! is so deeply encoded in its music, which draws from the blues, acid jazz, and beyond. I definitely watched some episodes as a kid, but I was born slightly too late for Arnold to become an integral part of my sacred tube time. And in my outsider opinion, this concert freaking ripped. The music was so good I felt bad I didn’t have any personal nostalgia to amplify the experience, a Proustian memory of a musical motif or watching an episode with someone you love.

Afterwards in the green room (swarmed with fans eager to meet Lang and Bartlett), Lang asked me how I’d liked the show. I word-vomited profusely, some inelegant version of the previous paragraph. Then my friend said, “that shit was lit,” and Lang’s eyes lit up. Hey Arnold! has been off the air for decades, but it’s still bringing people together.