Cat Power
The Forum Theatre, Melbourne
Thursday 7 March 2013
Photo courtesy of Faster Louder
Aside from her extensive back catalogue of widely adored music which crosses numerous genres, Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) has a reputation for patchy live performances and (frankly kind of strange) rants online and during interviews. When she recently cancelled her European tour due to health reasons, the twitterverse was abuzz with scaremongers saying the temperamental artist wouldn’t show for her Australian tour.
The release of her 9th studio album, “Sun” in 2012 was coupled with interviews focusing on her former issues with alcohol, and troubled past. It also heralded a new Chan Marshall – one who played all the instruments on “Sun”, produced and self-funded the album, and played the role of manager and tour booker. She directed the video for Cherokee too – watch it here. Whilst it’s tempting to speculate that she has taken on all these roles because others perhaps find her too complicated, those believing the hype would say that the Chan Marshall who emerged in 2012 was a much more empowered musician than the one we’ve known previously.
Either way, at her show at The Forum Theatre I was relieved to witness a performer who looked at the crowd, moved around the stage and danced enough to show us she was getting off on the music. All of these things are in stark contrast to the Cat Power show I witnessed at The Corner Hotel in the late 90’s when she played the entire gig looking through her hair, seemingly too scared to look directly at the audience.
Marshall could have allayed the crowd's fears at the Forum by opening with one of the big tracks from her recent album, putting us on notice that this was the new Chan Marshall we were witnessing in action. However she chose instead to have the band open with a lengthy instrumental before she appeared (by which time audience members were looking a bit concerned). The wave and genuine smile she shot the audience when entering the stage were worth a million dollars in terms of reassurance though. They played The Greatest before moving into 4 tracks back-to-back from “Sun” (Cherokee, Silent Machine, Manhattan and Human Being). After diverging from “Sun”, for a couple of songs, including Angelitos Negros (the Roberta Flack cover she included on the Jukebox bonus disc), Marshall and her band proceeded to deliver the rest of the album, excluding only the title track and Real Life.
And maybe in fact, THAT is the new Chan Marshall - one who has earned her first top ten album in the US with the fantastic body of songs that make up “Sun” (the album she’s produced with the least input from others) and thereby earned the right to do whatever the hell she wants. The album was included in numerous “Best of” lists for 2012, including ours (view the list here), and was variously described by critics as “cathartic”, “risky”, “vital” and “passionate”. Still sporting her messy cropped blonde hairdo, her no-fuss outfit of black jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt added to the image of a tougher Cat Power than we’ve previously seen.
What was a very enjoyable show would have been a million times stronger without the lengthy instrumentals at both the beginning and halfway through. Don’t get me wrong, these jams sounded good, but it was Marshall that we’d come to see, after all. The end of the gig was also unusual. During the closing track Ruin, she picked up an enormous bunch of flowers and proceeded to pretend to try to give them to each member of the band (who were still playing) before throwing the flowers one by one to audience members. At the end of the track, the band then left the stage and “New God Flow” by Pusha T & Kanye West was blasted through the PA, signaling that there would be no encore. Marshall stayed on stage though, thanking the audience and lapping up the applause. It was only afterwards that I thought that perhaps the 4 or 5 songs that followed her 5-10 minute absence from the stage halfway through the gig (whilst the band played an instrumental jam) was meant to represent an encore. Never mind that encores are usually a result of the performer returning after the gig seems to be finished and the crowd has demanded more. The crowd was certainly keen for more, but with the band remaining on stage the whole time, there wasn’t a sense that the main body of the show was over.
All in all, Cat Power put on a good show. It was great to see her looking so present and really enjoying herself, and I felt blessed to be hearing the fantastic songs from “Sun” played live. Her unusual voice was in good form, even if there was the odd moment where I wondered where she was going melodically. The sound wasn’t as full as I expected it to be, so I felt it lacked a bit of punch, with some songs feeling a bit lackluster in comparison to the very full sound of the album. Peace and Love was probably the song they managed the biggest sound for. All in all though, without feeling blown away by the show, I was happy to see an amazing artist deliver a confident performance, and to hear so many tracks from one of my favourite albums of 2012 in a live setting.
Lex Cran
The release of her 9th studio album, “Sun” in 2012 was coupled with interviews focusing on her former issues with alcohol, and troubled past. It also heralded a new Chan Marshall – one who played all the instruments on “Sun”, produced and self-funded the album, and played the role of manager and tour booker. She directed the video for Cherokee too – watch it here. Whilst it’s tempting to speculate that she has taken on all these roles because others perhaps find her too complicated, those believing the hype would say that the Chan Marshall who emerged in 2012 was a much more empowered musician than the one we’ve known previously.
Either way, at her show at The Forum Theatre I was relieved to witness a performer who looked at the crowd, moved around the stage and danced enough to show us she was getting off on the music. All of these things are in stark contrast to the Cat Power show I witnessed at The Corner Hotel in the late 90’s when she played the entire gig looking through her hair, seemingly too scared to look directly at the audience.
Marshall could have allayed the crowd's fears at the Forum by opening with one of the big tracks from her recent album, putting us on notice that this was the new Chan Marshall we were witnessing in action. However she chose instead to have the band open with a lengthy instrumental before she appeared (by which time audience members were looking a bit concerned). The wave and genuine smile she shot the audience when entering the stage were worth a million dollars in terms of reassurance though. They played The Greatest before moving into 4 tracks back-to-back from “Sun” (Cherokee, Silent Machine, Manhattan and Human Being). After diverging from “Sun”, for a couple of songs, including Angelitos Negros (the Roberta Flack cover she included on the Jukebox bonus disc), Marshall and her band proceeded to deliver the rest of the album, excluding only the title track and Real Life.
And maybe in fact, THAT is the new Chan Marshall - one who has earned her first top ten album in the US with the fantastic body of songs that make up “Sun” (the album she’s produced with the least input from others) and thereby earned the right to do whatever the hell she wants. The album was included in numerous “Best of” lists for 2012, including ours (view the list here), and was variously described by critics as “cathartic”, “risky”, “vital” and “passionate”. Still sporting her messy cropped blonde hairdo, her no-fuss outfit of black jeans and a black v-neck t-shirt added to the image of a tougher Cat Power than we’ve previously seen.
What was a very enjoyable show would have been a million times stronger without the lengthy instrumentals at both the beginning and halfway through. Don’t get me wrong, these jams sounded good, but it was Marshall that we’d come to see, after all. The end of the gig was also unusual. During the closing track Ruin, she picked up an enormous bunch of flowers and proceeded to pretend to try to give them to each member of the band (who were still playing) before throwing the flowers one by one to audience members. At the end of the track, the band then left the stage and “New God Flow” by Pusha T & Kanye West was blasted through the PA, signaling that there would be no encore. Marshall stayed on stage though, thanking the audience and lapping up the applause. It was only afterwards that I thought that perhaps the 4 or 5 songs that followed her 5-10 minute absence from the stage halfway through the gig (whilst the band played an instrumental jam) was meant to represent an encore. Never mind that encores are usually a result of the performer returning after the gig seems to be finished and the crowd has demanded more. The crowd was certainly keen for more, but with the band remaining on stage the whole time, there wasn’t a sense that the main body of the show was over.
All in all, Cat Power put on a good show. It was great to see her looking so present and really enjoying herself, and I felt blessed to be hearing the fantastic songs from “Sun” played live. Her unusual voice was in good form, even if there was the odd moment where I wondered where she was going melodically. The sound wasn’t as full as I expected it to be, so I felt it lacked a bit of punch, with some songs feeling a bit lackluster in comparison to the very full sound of the album. Peace and Love was probably the song they managed the biggest sound for. All in all though, without feeling blown away by the show, I was happy to see an amazing artist deliver a confident performance, and to hear so many tracks from one of my favourite albums of 2012 in a live setting.
Lex Cran
Photo courtesy of Beat Magazine
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