Image by Chrissy Lush
Fizzling out
Sound problems leave Cat Power and fans restless in NYC
By Katy Henriksen
Published: February 8th, 2008 | 10:31am
February 6, 2008, in New York — The night was one of dramatic shifts. Walking along the wide avenues to the far west side of midtown Manhattan, the wind felt spring-like following an afternoon reaching into the upper 60s. By the night’s end, wind along the Hudson River had picked up and the temperature plummeted for a more seasonable walk back to the subway. Inside, the crowd at the sold-out show was restless, as was Cat Power, because the sound mixing left something to be desired, to say the least. The bursts of hellish feedback and reverb — along with her backing band, the Dirty Delta Blues — ended up taking center stage for the much of the epic 22-song set.
This part of the concert has been well documented in various postings, including a photo posting at Brooklyn Vegan clocking in an impressive 100 virulent comments being slung back and forth when I last checked. Yes, Chan Marshall repeatedly complained about the searing sonorous blares, her most dramatic moment being when she sang, “There’s too much feedback,” while lying on the floor of the stage during a sultry rendition of “The Tracks of My Tears.” But she had a right to. The industrial 3,000-capacity space run by the Bowery Presents empire (Mercury Lounge, Bowery Ballroom, and Music Hall of Williamsburg, to name a few) was formerly a dance club, and the venue has been getting a lot of bad reviews ever since The National inaugurated it last fall.
Unlike previous incarnations of Marshall, those stage-fright-addled days of yore, she persevered and closed the night out in triumph with a perfectly balanced and woefully interpreted rendition of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” a track not included on her recnt covers album, Jukebox (Matador). She also flung Cat Power tees and long-stemmed red roses to an adoring audience, with fans flinging a scarf, a notebook ,and a bouquet back up to her.
Marshall plowed through most of her Jukebox tunes before performing a sure crowd pleaser, “The Greatest,” a little more than midway through. That’s not to say there weren’t great moments early on. They came during songs that were meant to have a large, booming sound, as in “Aretha, Sing One For Me” and “Lost Someone,” performed back to back. The setup didn’t work out as well for “Silver Stallion,” a quiet and breezy gem from Jukebox, which got muddled up in the fuzzy mix. For the entire night she rarely stayed in one place, at times pulling one leg up, bending her knee and pointing her white-shoed feet inward, or gesturing with her arms and hands — always with the mic right up beside her mouth.
Cat Power purists complain about her not playing guitar or piano any longer, and even get nostalgic for her anxiety-ridden fits and bursts, but that’s their loss. There’s no denying that her harrowing alto and masterful delivery has always drawn listeners in. With the preened and glossy Cat Power of today, that voice is just as haunting. She’s just traded the raw angst for a complex melancholy. Unfortunately, that complexity would’ve been better showcased in a more intimate setting — not the former nightclub on the far west side, far, far away from the subway.
Issue #34
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