Cat Power – Palladium – 10/9/08
Posted October 14th, 2008 · Artists: Cat Power
Went out to the Palladium with BVaz and Jill to catch Cat Power (Chan Marshall + Band) in her rescheduled makeup show (she was originally scheduled for April, but cancelled due to injuring her vocal cords). I didn’t get a chance to see them at Lollapalooza due to a conflict, and given the fact that I love her last original album, The Greatest, and due to the fact that that is literally the full extent of my familiarity with her, I was super curious as to how this show was going to be, plus, who doesn’t have a soft spot for a hot chick musician? BVaz knowswhatI’mtalkingabout. Anyways, the show. In a nutshell, the band sounded great, she sounded great, but….what a bizarre show. See all of our photos from the event here but be warned – the photo above is about as good as it gets. The poor camera quality is partly to blame, but mostly to blame is the bizarreness of the show (and stage lighting) in general. Hit the jump for the full story and review.
So, the show started with 3 members of the eventual 6 piece band (no Chan) onstage – no real shocker. The stage lights were low practically off, and they just were kind of grooving out some background type tunes. Nothing too strange yet. Then things got weird. Up on the stage comes….someone. Turned out to be Cat Power herself, but it was almost impossible to tell because the front lights didn’t come up. In fact, they never came on. The band stayed backlit only for the whole show, with the front part of the stage in total darkness, all night. What makes that odd is that Chan would stand as far forward as the stage would allow her, so that there were absolutely no lights on her whatsoever for nearly the entire set. During about 3 1/2 songs there was a spotlight following her around the stage as she walked back and forth, but she kept ducking behind this bank of speakers. Much of the time, she would duck out during the songs. What was she doing back there? We decided she had a game of Monopoly going vs. her road manager to the side (“I’m going to have to mortgage B&O Railroad to pay the rent for Park Place this round!”) All of this combined to give the impression that Chan Marshall is a very…strange….Cat. (See what I did there? Double entendre!)
The weird antics of Chan aside, the show itself was very good. I mean, it would essentially have been the same experience if I listened to some live recordings of Cat Power at home in the dark, but the music was great. The band sounded good – she sounded fantastic. If you like The Greatest like I do, you’ll love her concert. The entire show is like an exaggerated, drawn out version of the way that album sounds. Chill, country, folksey, thoughtful, soulful, relaxed, bluesey, and way cool. Strangely enough, I only recognized five songs she played all night, and she played a ton of songs. She played one cover I knew, Fortunate Son by Creedence, and four from The Greatest.
They played a fantastic version of Where is My Love. That is the weakest track from The Greatest, and it was nearly unrecognizeable live, which is a very good thing. It honestly was simply a different song with lyrics from Where is My Love. They also played The Greatest, a shortened version of Lived in Bars (which left out the end which is where that song excels), and my personal favorite, The Moon, which was every bit as heartbreaking live as on the album. Great stuff.
As strange as it was for Chan to stand in near-darkness for the entire show, and leave the stage for brief moments to long periods, she seemed to really enjoy being as close to the crowd as possible, frequently even bending over to sing to one person at a time in the audience. There was a group of dudes who were ultrafans and who kept waving at her, and she definitely acknowledged them several times and waved back. I do think she enjoys interacting with the crowd at her shows; at least, that’s how it comes across.
The only complaint with their musical performance that I have is that at the end of the main set, 4/6 of the band (including Chan) left the stage, but the bass player and keyboard player stayed for a minute, seemed to record a sample, which they then looped to keep music going, and they all left the stage. The lights stayed down and we figured we were just waiting for an encore. After about 5 minutes, the house lights came on and they kicked us out – no encore. Just the final link in the weird Cat Power show chain, I suppose. Oh well, pretty minor gripe seeing as how they had just churned out about 2 hours of straight music (not even wasting time to talk to the crowd….ever), so I think the audience got their fill. In the end, if you like Cat Power and The Greatest, you’ll love her show.
Cat Power – Lived in Bars – The Greatest
Cat Power – The Moon – The Greatest
Chan and Co. are just doing a couple of remaining makeup dates from last April:
10/10/08 – Warehouse – Houston, TX
10/11/08 – Stubb’s – Austin, TX
