6/16/04 - Sydney, Australia, Seymour Center

6/16/04 - Sydney, Australia, Seymour Center

Setlist:
Good Woman
I Dont Blame You
Wolf Among Wolves
Willie
Why?
Norma Jean
Names
Satisfaction
I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart
The Moon
Metal Heart
Remember Me
Mama, You Got A Daughter
?
Bjork song - Sang along with
Rad (Smoosh cover) - Lip-synced to the song

Following her 3 concerts in Taiwan as part of the "Leaf International Festival" (of which I can find little information), Chan returned to Australia for a 4 concert run. She played solo for all 4 concerts. Clare Bowditch opened at this show.

There is a recording of this concert that runs about 57 minutes. Does anyone have a copy of this?

Review

Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall, has an interesting reputation here in Australia. On her last visit her Canberra show was hailed as excellent and she was booed off stage in Sydney when she played at the Metro. She apparently lay on the stage, drunk, and refused to play. So I approached this evening’s show with a degree of apprehension, thankfully she was on her metal this evening.

The opener for the evening was the stunning Clare Bowditch, who played solo without her backing band The Feeding Set. Arriving a couple of songs in and then being seated front row centre, I was treated to one of the best folk performances I have seen in a long while. Her guitar work was amazing and with only a few stops to tune up she played a 45-minute set. The songs were captivating and her voice was angelic, definitely someone I’m keen to see play live again.

One of the best things about this evening was the sound. As the show was in a theatre, the acoustics were amazing. The show was more like listening to a live album in your lounge room at home. At one point the power to the PA system conked out, so Bowditch entertained the crowd with a few chords of her next track and a little banter about musicianship.

With her set finished it was now time for the immutable Ms Marshall. The stage was set: a piano, an electric guitar, her piano stool, a microphone and five lights, a source of constant entertainment throughout the evening. This was a solo show, without a backing band.

Reading the reviews of some of her other solo shows, this should have set the alarm bells ringing, but tonight she was there. She walked on stage, sat on the piano stool and adjusted the microphone stand. She launched into her first tune, played it through, but it appeared to finish a little bit early. I haven’t listened to much of her material, but the song just appeared unfinished.

It was at the end of the first song that the lighting fun began. She decided that the spots front of stage were too bright so she asked for the lights to be turned down. I was sitting near a couple of photographers, and they were livid. Throughout the show Marshall was always chatting to the crowd. The topics of conversation were diverse, ranging from the tracks she should play, through to Red Bull. To my mind the show was half performance art, half legitimate concert. There is no doubt about her skills with the guitar, voice and piano; she has talent. She switched between instruments with ease and appeared to be playing without a set list, so the audience was sometimes indulged with the songs they requested.

Her set was concluded with a bit more performance art. She again asked for the lights to be lowered and appeared to walk from the stage. The crowd hailed pleas for her to stay and she agreed, wandering around the front of stage complaining that someone was shining a “flash light” on her. She walked up through the crowd and picked up a radio mike. In the darkened crowd she wandered around singing along to a Bjork song. She concluded the set with a rap song (something that sounded a lot like ‘Lil Bow Wow or Kris Kross) in the same vein. I think this time around she was miming to the backing track.

There were more howls for an encore but she would not treat us this time ‘round. All in all it was an interesting show. It was different to the shows I’ve seen of late and it was refreshing to seen an artist who didn’t conform to the normal music industry stereotype.

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Comments from Clare Bowditch

I supported Cat Power in Sydney recently. After the show, I ducked out into the Seymour Theatre foyer to say goodnight to some friends, and on my way back to Chan’s dressing-room I became aware that a flock of young boys and girls were shadowing my every move, hoping that I would somehow lead them back to Chan’s ‘den’. It was that classic “Am I being followed?” scenario where you feel something whacky going on behind you so you turn around and someone whisper “Act normal!” or “Hide!”, but it’s too late. Well this group of kids were sitting there pretending to inspect the carpet and the walls and I said to them “What are you guys doing?” and they’re like “Well, um, nothing much…” until someone honest says “We are in love with Cat Power”. Very funny, and I can totally relate because I did exactly the same think with Jeff Buckley when I was a teenager (circa 1995-ish). My “songwriter crush” for him “climaxed” during a very brief meeting backstage at the Enmore Theatre where he said “Hello” and I got so excited that I let out some sort of “squeek” sound. God help me, I had it bad. Anyway, these kids were really friendly and they did eventually get to meet Chan (she very generously invited all thirty of them back into our dressing-room, and shared a box of soft-drinks with them) and let’s just hope for their sakes that they made less of a dick of themselves than I did.

Comments from Emma Russack:
http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/features/profile/396231/the-profile-emma-russack.htm

Best gig you’ve ever been to: 

Maybe not the ‘best’ gig, but my dad took me to see Cat Power at the Seymour Centre in Sydney when I was 15. It changed both our lives (Dad said it was the strangest thing he’d ever seen), and I got the handwritten set-list after the show. She also did this whacky dance to a Lil Bow Wow song* and it was so cool. 


*Actually, the Smoosh song, "Rad".