9/2/06 - Minneapolis, MN, Varsity Theater

9/2/06 - Minneapolis, MN, Varsity Theater

Setlist (not sure which show):
Kingsport Town
Empty Shell 
House Of The Rising Sun 
Hate 
The Greatest 
Who Knows Where the Time Goes? 
Living Proof 
Unknown 
I Don't Blame You 
Wild is the Wind 
Could We 
Here Comes A Regular 
Wolf Among Wolves 
Unknown (New Song) 
I Feel 
Remember Me 
Willie 
John, John 
Love & Communication 
Love & Communication 2 
The Moon
Good Woman
In This Hole - Sophisticated Lady Medley
Oh, Time 
Maybe Not 
Unknown (maybe I Cant Give You Anything But Love)
Islands 
Satisfaction
Say
Naked if I Want To 
Still In Love 
Colors And The Kids 
Lived in Bars 
Blue Moon

These were the forty-fourth and forty-fifth concert and twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh solo performances of the tour.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thispublicaddress/232811772/sizes/z/in/photostream/


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Review
http://pattynet.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36247

Here's my Cat Power review. Only it's not really a good review. I just wrote it down because I wanted to remember every damn second from my first Cat Power concert. I was scribbling notes like I was a rabid journalist or something. Anyway, I saw her without a band so I'm sure my concert experience was significantly different from yours, Keith. Elise, did she have the band when you saw her?... 

Cat Power: 9/2/06 @ The Varsity Theater Minneapolis, MN 

Kingsport Town 

Empty Shell - After she was done she said, "Hold on. I feel a burp comin' on. It's deep. I can feel it. It's from the tabouli." 

House Of The Rising Sun 

Hate - The most meaningful and comforting aspect of the night for me was that she changed the lyrics: "In the wind I crunch I don't want to die...I don't hate myself and I don't want to die." I needed to hear that. And I went to bed with it running through my head. 

The Greatest 

Who Knows Where the Time Goes? 

Living Proof 

Unknown - A song I don't know. 

I Don't Blame You - Soooo good! 

Wild is the Wind - This is my favorite cover of hers so it was definitely a highlight for me. She played it a bit faster than it is on the album. She moved from the piano to a stool and was adjusting so she could hold her guitar comfortably. She said, "This is hard to do because of my huge breasts. They're just overfloooowing. It's hard. It's just so...hard. *coughs* Sometimes when I'm up here a hair ends up in my mouth and I just swallow it." 

Could We - Someone yelled, "You're beautiful!" She responded with "You're drunk! I'm just kidding. Thank you. Really. Thanks. Oh my god, now she's going to say, 'You're not beautiful.'"
 
Here Comes A Regular - I really love this song--it was a nice surprise. She only sang a couple verses, though. She told us that there's a bar called Mona's in New York. She has eight friends from Atlanta who have passed away and she has a memory of being with each one of them at Mona's, during different years, with Here Comes a Regular playing on the jukebox. She said it's hard to go there now and not want to drink. 

Wolf Among Wolves 

Unknown New Song - She was at the piano bench and said, "This area needs to be where all the action is. This area should be STEAMING." She signified "this area" by pantomiming a box in front of her face and she was bopping side to side. It was the cutest thing ever.

I Feel - A person from the crowd yelled, "Tell us how ya feel." So she made up a song about feeling like people are going to give up on her, being sick of the police, and thinking she should be president. 

Remember Me - I just made that title up. It's the only part I remember from the song. She had a bit of a mid-song freakout. She started complaining about the sound, extended her arms out so her hands were resting on the top of the piano, and bowed her head and stayed like that for almost a minute. Then she finished the song. But she was really frustrated and I could tell she was actually afraid to start playing the next song. She was basically having a conversation with herself and she said, "This thing don't play itself, girl. You need to play. Fuck you. No, fuck you." lol... 

Willie - She stopped in the middle to complain about the sound again. Someone yelled, "Just don't think about it!" She snapped back and said, "It's hard to not think about it when it's all you can hear in the room." She finished the song and walked to the microphone. She said something like, "I know (referring to the sound problems). I do this every night. You don't do this. I'm tryin' to teach ya." 

John, John - Hit the Road Jack. Well, kind of. She replaced Jack with Chan. And then replaced Jack with John-John. She ended the song by singing, "It's true that we love one another. I love John-John like a little brother." And that made me think of Miranda.
 
Love & Communication 
Love & Communication 2 - My favorite song from the new album! She started over two different times, and I was perfectly fine with that. Before the song, though, she was telling us about how she saw her psychiatrist and that there are electrodes that can be placed under the skin on your head to treat depression. So it's basically a more humane version of electroshock therapy. 

The Moon - She was so fucking ON during this song, which was good to see (and hear). 

Good Woman - After this she asked, "How much money would I win for smelling so bad? Seriously. How much do you think someone could win in a stinkfest?" 

In This Hole - Sophisticated Lady Medley - In This Hole (first half) - Sophisticated Lady - In This Hole (second half).
 
Oh, Time - A song I don't know All I can remember is it was about time being a great healer. 

Maybe Not 

Unknown - A song I don't know It was a capella. And beautiful. 

Islands - Uh... I totally can't stand this song. 

Satisfaction
 
Say - Another highlight. She faltered at the beginning and I thought she was going to give up on it. My friend Amanda was sitting next to me and I remember saying, "Oh my god. She better keep playing this damn song." Chan asked for requests and a guy (who I plan on marrying) yelled for Metal Heart. She said, "I can't do that. I'll fuck it up." Someone requested Cross Bones Style and she said, "I can't do that one anymore." Whoever yelled Naked if I Want To won. 

Naked if I Want To - We had to help her a bit with the lyrics because she couldn't remember the line "Can I fire fireworks on the fourth of every single July?" 

Still In Love 

Colors And The Kids - Beeeeeautiful. She told us that it's about her nephew and one of her friends who is HIV positive. They both have "yellow hair" and Chan, her nephew, and her friend all have a January birthday, which explains why she sings about a January night. After the song she said, "I'd kill for a cigarette right now. A small rodent. I'd kill a small rodent for one." 

Lived in Bars 

Blue Moon - She asked for a cigarette and someone in the front row gave her one and lit it for her. She completely cracked me up. She said, "I have this performance thing that I just need to do. I'm just taking one drag off this cigarette and then putting it out. See, I'm putting it out right now." Of course she didn't put it out and she talked to us while she finished her cigarette. She was talking about how all Bob Dylan fans are actually not fans at all but are completely obsessed. Then she was talking about the rumor that was spread about her opening up for Bob Dylan on his tour in Europe. One of her uncles is obsessed with Bob Dylan and texted her right away when he heard the rumor. He claimed he wanted to be her tour manager and she was explaining that that would be absolute chaos because important people would probably be calling about television appearances and stuff and her uncle would just start talking to them about the weather and other random shit. She got up and waved to us, thanked us, and put her arms above her head in the shape of a heart. Then she walked behind one of the sheer curtains that was in the background and tried to close it but it wouldn't close. The whole "curtain call" was funny because we could see exactly what she was doing. Then she HOPPED off stage. :)I think it's been said time and time again but there is just something about her that just makes you want to give her a huge hug. She's absolutely brilliant but she's so insecure at times that it's heartbreaking.

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Short Review

Saw Chan solo at the varsity in MLPS on Sept. 2. She was a complete train wreck. Complaints about the amount of reverb gave way to stops-and-starts on a dozen songs. The ones she did manage to finish were sparse and powerful. But then she would start complaining again … about anything. At one point she put her head down on the piano and just sat there for a couple of minutes. I saw the Replacements play a number of times for the hometown fans. I knew what to expect going in – half played songs and drunken shananigans. (Paul once fell into the orchestra pit with the mic stand, got back on his feet and kept playing. Priceless). But at least the Mats were having fun. At Chan’s show I felt as though I was sitting in on a narcissist’s couch session. Painful to watch. I finally bailed after two hours – at least an hour longer than I felt was appropriate. Rumor has it she played for another 30 minutes and then had one of her abovementioned chat sessions before wandering off stage. I sort of wish she had been drunk. At least there would have been an excuse for her behavior.

Updated to include a very detailed review, revealing the setlist (not sure which show). Wow, ''Still In Love'' was said to be played. Interesting!

Review
http://www.slimcoincidence.com/blog/?p=855

First things first: Chan Marshall has immense talent and an amazing voice. There are few folks who can write the way she does, or blend Bowie with Sandy Denny. That said, everything you’ve heard is true. The show was billed for 5:00, a hand-written notice on the theater door said 5:30, and things actually started around 6:45. Tonight was a two-hour parade of the increasingly-famous Cat Power neuroses: the abrupt starts and stops. The multiple apologies for her voice, the PA, and for being boring (which she wasn’t). The mic adjustments and audience conversations in the middle of songs. The off-and-on, off-and-on with the shirt she wore over her tank (shirt for guitar, tank for piano). The clearing her throat into the mic for the first hour and a half. The complaints about the lights and the sound. A generous handful of people left, and I thought about it after she broke off in the middle of a transcendent version of ”Good Woman” toward the end of the evening. She did manage to make it through an entire two-hour set, though, and so did I.

The sound was a problem, but it wasn’t as evident to the audience as it was on stage. Chan is a master with the microphone, playing it at least as well as the piano or guitar. But with a voice as specific as hers and a psychedelic sound that demands such a thin-edge calibration of echo, it’s difficult to expect the venue guy to get it right. Her movement between a standing mic with the guitar and a sitting mic with the guitar and piano also poses some tweaking issues. Such a special, constructed sound needs to travel with its own sound guy. She needs to find her Theo Van Rock.

One of the amazing things about this concert was the sense that the audience was working just as hard as the artist to pull everyone through to the end. The hall sat 50 comfortably in armchairs, with standing room for about 800. By the time it was full, there were 1000 people sitting quietly in front of the stage. They clapped for every song, they chattered to her when she asked questions, they shored her up when she apologized or claimed she was being boring. Every time a song suddenly halted or she grew visibly physically uncomfortable, there was a sense that the entire room was mentally working to keep her on the stage. It was endearing and exhausting.

That’s really my overall impression of the whole thing, I think: I’ve never been so stressed out by being entertained. Part of it was all the quirks of her performance, and part of it was the venue itself. It’s a converted movie theater, and it has all the structural elements necessary for a good performance space. But the seats are situated on stage risers along two opposing walls, so that you face the audience opposite you and have to twist around to see the stage. Once you’re seated you’re pretty well trapped, since people sit along all the edges of the risers. There are multiple-setting Christmas lights hung from the ceiling, and as they cycled through all of their settings I kept waiting for the audience to develop spontaneous epilepsy. The exits are narrow, and I would hate to see what would happen in it if there was an emergency of some sort. There would have to be a helluva bill for me to go back there; Bob Dylan and Steve Wynn on the same stage, perhaps, with Big Mama Thornton singing backup and Cyndi Lauper tap-dancing.

I’ve watched many artists soldier through worse conditions with a lot more grace. I still have no idea if what I saw tonight was the most honest performance ever, or the most unprofessional performance ever. Perhaps it was both at the same time. I will say, though, that through it all she was never imperious. Never a prima-donna and never really angry at anyone but herself. Just sort of neurotic and spoiled by audiences that are willing to indulge her.

Chan said that she doesn’t practice because she prefers to let things develop onstage, and this is what causes all the abrupt drop-offs in her playing. I can respect that to a point, but there are very few artists I’m willing to shell out $60 for us to watch practice live. I’m not sorry I went, but will I ever see Cat Power again live? Probably not. Will I continue to be a fan? Yes.