Many Romances Have Been Saved By Your Sound

Cat Power @ Terminal 5 2/6/2008
New York, New York / Rambling (Wo)Man / Don’t Explain / I Believe In You / Aretha, Sing One For Me / Lost Someone / Silver Stallion / A Woman Left Lonely / Lord Help The Poor and Needy / Metal Heart / The Moon / (instrumental) / Where Is My Love / The Greatest / The Tracks Of My Tears / Could We / She’s Got You / Naked If I Want To / Song To Bobby / Dark End Of The Street / Willie // Lived In Bars / I’ve Been Loving You Too Long

Cat Power & Dirty Delta Blues “Aretha, Sing One For Me (Live Black Session)” – Let’s put it right out there: Terminal 5 is a fucking terrible venue. It’s in a very inconvenient location, and getting out of the place is a total hassle. Unless you manage to squeeze into the densely packed front of the floor or get a prime spot on the balconies, your sight lines are going to be horrible. I have no idea what the optimal usage of that place might be, but it sure as hell is not for concerts. To make matters worse, the sound is shoddy, and you end up with a show like this in which the musicians are consistently on point, but plagued by seemingly elementary sound issues — mysterious buzzes, unintentional feedback – that are never resolved in the span of a 90 minute set. I only recommend going to the venue if you want to see a band that is unlikely to play any other show in the area for the foreseeable future.

Chan Marshall, a woman who not so long ago would stop a show dead in its tracks for a lot less than a lousy sound mix, just sorta rolled with it. I hesitate to say that she has become a polished professional — there’s an unpretentious rawness to her that’s probably (hopefully) never going to disappear — but she’s at least become more of an extrovert on stage, and there’s a clear awareness of the fact that she’s got to put on a show, and that the audience is willing to follow her where ever she goes. She displays a lot of nervous energy on stage, but it’s mainly evident in her physicality — she’s never still, and she spends a lot of her time on stage pacing around aimlessly. On the other hand, her vocals are careful, focused, and invested with emotion. Her voice isn’t quite as devastating as it once was, but even when she’s very low key, she’s selling the songs with soul. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)