2/16/05 - Melbourne, Australia, Manchester Lane Jazz Club

**Cokelike** Mon 30 Jul - 1:58

2/16/05 - Melbourne, Australia, Manchester Lane Jazz Club

This was the third and last date of her 3 dates in the south pacific.

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You never know what to expect from a Cat Power show. They range from sublimely spiritual to teetering on the edge of collapse.

On a fleeting visit here on the way to visiting friends in New Zealand, the show at the New York-style jazz club Manchester Lane sold out on word of mouth.

And on the tiny stage, there was nowhere for the hideously shy performer to hide.

"I wish I was sitting where you were," she said at one stage.

So there was an air of nervous anticipation among the reverential crowd of about 350 fans. Would Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) live up to her reputation as a modern-day Billie Holiday, ranked by many, alongside PJ Harvey, Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and Kim Gordon, as one of the finest female singer-songwriters of her generation?

"You guys nervous?" was how she broke the ice upon taking her seat at a grand piano.

"I'm gonna do some new ones. Cheers. Sorry," she said before launching into a 30-minute medley of new material. The crowd hung on to every word and note, silently willing her to keep up the momentum.

For once, she did remain focused for most of the show, energised by her new material and probably feeling less threatened by a much smaller crowd than she has played to on recent tours.

Her only gripes were with the lack of reverb and the bright stage lights, which she dimmed so all the audience could see was a silhouette of her brunette helmet of hair and her nose pointing towards the piano microphone against the backdrop of a red-velvet curtain.

Cat Power plays modern-day gothic blues, alternating between piano ballads and reverb-soaked electric guitar numbers, chewing on her words in a southern American drawl.

Her gothic folk tales of love and heartache and her search for peace mesmerise the crowd, while her husky voice serenades, caresses, moans and cracks with emotion over her hypnotic, sparse playing. It was so intimate, it felt as if she was singing bedtime lullabies from the end of your bed.