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Wednesday, October 26, 2005
GOOD WOMAN
Cat Power
You Are Free
Matador : 2003
[Buy It]
SUGAR, SUGAR
The Archies
Single
RKO : 1969
[Buy It]
Last night I rode up to Chicago to see Cat Power. I wasn't all that into it. I mean, I would probably go to see her if she were playing in Iowa City, but it's a long four-hour drive. My friend, Mark, who had purchased an extra ticket based on the mistaken notion that Cat Power's status with Indie chicks would land him a date, was desperate for a ride. So he offered me his extra and gas money to use my car--plus he would drive both way. So I figured what the fuck.
We went straight to the best beer bar in the world--the Hopleaf on Clark and Foster--and drank a medium-sized fortune in Belgians. The Reader listed an opening act we hadn't heard of, so we figured showing up 45 minutes after the ticket's listing of 7:30 would be a safe bet to land a decent seat. How annoying that she was already playing when we arrived. It was a solo show, which I wasn't pleased about either, and the place was hipster central. There's something amusing about rapt 23-year olds with hair parted too far to one side "shhhing" each other at the slightest sound so as not to miss a single throaty sigh.
My first impression? This woman is not nearly as attractive as Mark had led me to believe. Mark is "in love" with Chan Marshall, but he admitted afterward that there was something distressingly linebacker-like about her appearance. Chan certainly doesn't look fragile. She looks like she could have wiped the floor with any of the girls in the room. "Well, she's a cracker-girl," Mark told me later, as if that explained it. As a Southerner himself, Mark calls people "crackers" more glibly--and affectionately--than I do.
The music was good, but not worth the drive. Chan has a unique voice, for sure, and a gift for creating a sense of intimacy. There were moments when my attention was totally captured, like when she played that "Good Woman" song. She mostly played new material that I didn't know. She played a lot of covers, most of which weren't on the covers album. She did an oddly melancholy version of "Sugar, Sugar," which I liked. She didn't play an encore. She was done in a little over an hour. I would have felt ripped off if I had paid for my ticket.
About half-way through the show, she started losing it, babbling under her breath about how she wasn't living up to her own expectations. This kind of talk elicited some hilariously earnest encouragement, including a totally unselfconscious "you go-girl!" shout-out from one of her midwestern fanlets. This, of course, seemed to embarrass her even more. It seemed like everyone was expecting a meltdown, wanted one even, but there was only some awkward mumbling and an occasional pointless apology.
by Matt MillerLabels: indie, joanna, live
posted by Joanna
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