Cat Power, Bright Eyes and Britt Daniel
Irving Plaza, New York (November 16, 2000)
»
|
Cat Power
Irving Plaza, New York
November 16, 2000 |
It takes a lot of balls to stand up on stage with a guitar and play, especially to a large crowd of pretentious college kids. Britt Daniel (best known as a founding member of Spoon), though, didn't seem a bit phased and the crowd was surprisingly polite and quiet. Recalling a Medieval Spanish troubadour entertaining a crowd with his tales, Daniel played about 30 minutes of un-earth shattering, but pleasant enough 2-and-a-half minute pop songs. For some songs he made use of jingle-jangle guitar style, while on others, he utilized a drum machine to create a smart contrast. Daniel's affected singing voice expired refrains that supported my long-held theory that after listening to a pop song one time, you know all of the lyrics.
Opening Bright Eyes' set with a solo acoustic number, Conor Oberst's voice strained with all the sincerity that one human being can possibly muster in the setting of a stage. He cried out that "Love is real, it is not just in long distance commercials..." like a love song from Richard Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde."
Is it presumptuous to call Bright Eyes Wagnerian? The lyrics, like Wagner's compositions in general, are so over-the-top but so beautifully conveyed, that it is hard to avoid being drawn in. And the contrasts between the quiet-yet-haunting slower songs and the screaming, bang-your-head-against-the-wall ones crafts a sonic epic poem. I am not attempting to say Bright Eyes will ever be as influential or important as Wagner, or that people will be listening to them and teaching classes about them in 100 years. Rather I am suggesting that if Wagner was in an indie band from Omaha at the end of the 20th century, his music might very well have sounded like Bright Eyes.
Despite Oberst's warning that "this [was] by far the largest audience [the band had] ever played in front of," Bright Eyes performed one of the most amazing sets I have seen in a quite a long time and converted many a new fan, including my concert-going companion.
"Sunrise, Sunset" made use of the "Fiddler On The Roof" lyric and then completely obliterated any inkling associated with the superficiality of a showtune. "A Line Allows Progress, A Circle Does Not," allowed for a subtle lyrical exchange between Conor and the drummer, Joe. Joe, whose band Son, Ambulance will be releasing an album early next year, got a chance to perform one of his songs, "Like Billy Budd Or Cyrano de Bergerac" which appeared on the Bright Eyes/Ambulance (before they became Son, Ambulance) Insound Tour Support CD. Though not as fleshed out as the Bright Eyes songs, it was a fine, lighter contribution to the set. The lightness of Joe's performance, made more lovely by an improvised vibraphone part, was then completely contrasted by "The Calendar Hung Itself" off of Fevers And Mirrors. This fast-tempoed, foot stomping, heartbreak secured the greatness of the set and brought out the hoots and hollars from a mellow, but appreciative audience.
And then there was Cat Power. Irving Plaza and a quiet audience were not conducive to Chan Marshall's set. Marshall peppered comments like, "I like it better when people talk," throughout the evening. She played, well, I wouldn't call them songs, but rather fragments of songs which for the first 25 minutes of her set created a devotional atmosphere in the room. Her fantastically unique voice was the focus of all attention as she strummed the same chords over and over again. Each song melded into the next so that there was no actual song in existence, but rather a series of ethereal sounds that were made yet more angelic by the blue lights reflecting off of her small frame.
But, as she turned to the piano, a downward spiral was set off and Marshall began to interrupt her own sonic trajectories with requests to lower her vocals in the monitors or statements about how sorry she was for her performance. But what did we expect?
As someone in the crowd cried out for "Wonderwall", she stood up from the piano, picked up her black Fender guitar and revealed two verses of Oasis's big American hit to the crowd. It was like nothing anyone had ever heard before, it was completely her own. She interrupted her own songs even further, made additional requests to the sound man, and somehow melded Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" into Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" in the expanse of 10 measures. But, as the set neared an hour in length, the problems, the relative silence, the neuroses, became a bit too much and Chan Marshall fled the situation by running out through the crowd and into the night. Someone took off after her, the crowd was left a bit stunned and confused, and all I could think was, "This is Post-Modern Rock."
A.K. GOLD | A.K. Gold lives in Washington, D.C., where she slaves away for a non-profit organization and constantly compares everything to New York City or Chicago. She's earned her "cred" as a college radio and pre-1960 country music DJ, committed indie label street teamer, sporadic zinemaker/contributor, retired mail-order filler and occasional freelance writer. From time to time, she publishes Anecdotal Evidence, a per zine that will some day be considered for the National Book Award, or possibly not. If you want to buy a copy, or desire to write to her for some other reason, email criticgirl@hotmail.com.