I've never quite got the concept behind playing concerts in semi-darkness. Certainly when you're as attractive as Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power. I mean, if you look like Steve Tyler, by all means, go for it. But Cat Powers?? When nearly every other song you play is an audience alienating electronic doo dad, use whatever powers you have to satisfy the paying punters, right?
Apparently not.
Despite a pretty good "Cherokee" to get the ball rolling, Cat chose to mine her latest album, Sun for levering it was worth and the effect was a draggy , muddle setlist that only got its footing very near the end, with "Nothing But Time" and "Peace And Love: and the mid-set cover of Pedro Infante's sublime "Angelitos Negros".
It really took Cat's fourth song to really irritate even though "3,6,9" couldn't match the version on the album, "Human Being", "King Rides By", and a terrible terrible "Manhattan" were unpleasant enough experiences. Indeed, I had trouble with Power before she even hit the set, when some guy stumbled over a poem about how protest movements rise like a phoenix after dying in one place. OK, whatever.
As for Cat, she rose like a Phoenix with her last album, Sun, released in August of this year, an album not as good as its best moments even though her best points were pretty good. In 2002, Cat was having difficulty with alcohol and her shows were considered disasters, though to be honest I'd have preferred the theater of the real of a full fledged disaster to the difficult and diffused set I got. In 2006, Cat had a breakdown and canceled her The Greatest tour, This year she broke up with her boyfriend and released the album.
Under those circumstances, the reticent Cat was using her powers of concentration to maintain control of the evening and mission accomplished, nobody is gonna claim she didn't have a cracker back up band or doesn't have a good voice, but the set needed a swift kick. One of her best new songs, the ten minute melodic brilliance of "Nothing But Time" gets truncated for completely bizarre reason and the meandering and brooding "Always On My Own" goes on for a couple of years. She stops "Back In The Day" because she doesn't like the sound. Which at least seems to push her towards us.
I am not alone in my distaste, a woman sitting nearby nudge me, pointed to a skylight near the ceiling and claimed that was the most interesting thing about the night. I ran into a friend of mine at Hammerstein, she had called me a couple of days ago to ask she should see Margot And The Nuclear So And Sos. I gave her the wrong answer and heard about it.
I am happy Cat has her life back in shape, I am happy she has a cracker band playing quasi ambient blues and indie workouts and a good one, and Alyson met Cat at a CD signing and wrote her how nice Cat is. So I am happy about that.
But even if she was Matahma Ghandi, this would be have been a drear, dark and boring set. Take this synth and shove it.
Grade: C