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March 26, 2005

Kathleen Edwards @ Knitting Factory 3/22

Tuesday night, I was cranky, hungry, still tired from a very fun but very long five days at SXSW, and desperately needed to do some laundry. But I really wanted to see Kathleen Edwards perform at the Knitting Factory that evening, based on the kick-ass performance she gave the last (and only other) time I'd seen her live. So I sucked it up and drove out to Hollywood for the big show.

It's been a while since I've been to the Knitting Factory, & it looks like they've done some remodeling. I'm not exactly thrilled with the current setup. The "Front Space" is an awkward place to see a show; if you're not lucky enough to be one of the first thirty people to walk in, forget about being able to see the performers. The stage isn't high enough, and there's a wall that juts out to entirely block the view of the stage from anyone who wants to get a drink from the bar. They've also got an obnoxious rotating light, which was clearly not only irritating the audience, but also Kathleen. We were all glad when they decided to shut the thing off.

Despite the surroundings, Kathleen delivered the goods. Her rough voice draws inevitable comparisons to Lucinda Williams, but Kathleen is definitely her own artist. She is an extremely passionate performer; as cliched as the phrase is, she really does put her whole heart into what she's doing onstage. I got chills as she wailed "I can't feel my broken heart" in "Six O'Clock News." Although it's occasionally a bit hard to understand some of the lyrics in her more up-tempo songs, her stage presence, band, and melodies are strong enough that it doesn't really matter. Her brilliant songwriting really stands out in ballads like "Mercury" and mid-tempo songs like "Copied Keys." She delivered a very diverse set of songs, a nice balance of music from her first album, as well as her most recent CD Back to Me, and also included some covers from Gram Parsons and Neil Young, demonstrating her wide array of influences. It was nice to see the audience so enraptured with her music; almost no one left before her encore was over.

Clearly, I wasn't the only one who thought that spending an evening seeing Kathleen Edwards sing her ass off was way better than doing laundry.

Posted by darlin at March 26, 2005 5:54 PM