1/31/14 – Melbourne, Australia, Thornbury Theatre

1/31/14 – Melbourne, Australia, Thornbury Theatre

Setlist:
Colors And The Kids
The Greatest
Norma Jean - Names Medley
Brave Liar
Why
I Dont Blame You
Old Detroit
Wolf Among Wolves
Fool
Monster
Can I Get A Witness
Let me Go 
Mary
Maybe Not
In This Hole
Let Sadness Not Be Attached To Your Name (aborted)
Great Expectations
Good Woman
From Fur City
Star Spangled Banner
The Ocean
Hate
Framboise Je t'aime
 
Encore:
Sea Of Love
Say
Baby Doll
Satisfaction
The Moon
Metal Heart
The Party
Werewolf
Sweedeedee
House Of The Rising Sun
What would The Community Think
Naked, If I Want To
I Wanna Be Your Dog
Bully

This is the 8th performance of the year. Mick Turner opened.

by Vic_Shibori

From setlist.fm

-Colors & kids
-The Greatest
-Norma Jean
-Names
-Brave Liar
-Why
-I Don't Blame You
-Old Detroit
-Wolf Among Wolves
-Fool
-Monster
-Can i get a witness
-Let me Go  
-Mary
-Maybe not
-In this hole
-Let Sadness not be attached to your name (aborted)
-Great Expectations
-Good woman
-From fur city
-Star Spangled
-The Ocean
-Hate
-French Song (Framboise je t'aime?)
 
Encore:
-Sea of Love
-Say
-Baby Doll
-Satisfaction
-The Moon
-Metal Heart
-The Party
-Werewolf
-Sweedeedee
-House of the rising Sun
-What would the community think
-Naked if i want to
-I wanna be your dog
-Bully

I don't tend to get jealous easily but i would have offered a lot to be there last night.

Maybe the first solo show of these tours that she begins with piano songs. If that setlist is right. Cool.

25 Pictures, most outstanding.
http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/photos/galleries/382293/cat-power-4.htm#8








This one... 

Review
http://www.tonedeaf.com.au/reviews/shows/383494/cat-power-5.htm

Sometimes, for even the most experienced musicians, there are factors out of their control that make a performance sub-par. For Chan Marshall, the first of her three Thornbury Theatre shows as the enduring Cat Power would be sadly ruined by sound issues. How the sound team at the Thornbury Theatre didn’t signal out the audible grievances earlier on in the night is baffling.

Throughout Mick Turner’s opening set, the Dirty Three guitarist’s problems were clear. The “post-rock opera” tunes of his 2013 solo effort Don’t Tell The Driver were nowhere near as immersive as the recorded versions, with the horns noticeably out of sync. The crowd gave up halfway through the performance as their muffled chatter began and grew louder as the set went on.

However, the attention was immediately refocused when Marshall entered the stage. The 42-year-old arrived with just her guitar and a piano in tow, the singer favouring the former for her first few songs. Or at least that’s what she planned. With zero sound emitting from the speakers at the strum of her instrument, Marshall was forced to begin with a striking selection of songs on the piano. Drawing mostly from her back catalogue rather than relying on 2012’s Sun, the musician showcased the heartbreaking sentiments of not only her songwriting, but the vast array of covers that she’s become known for throughout her career. With ‘Old Detroit’, Marshall ushered in round two with the guitar, but inevitably switched back defeated. The musician signalled countless directives towards the sound technician throughout ‘Wolf Among Wolves’ and ‘Fool’. After stopping midway through the latter, the singer profusely apologised – not for the sound issues, mind you – but for asking the sound engineer to fix the reverb issues at hand. Back to the piano and the likes of  ‘Can I Get A Witness’, ‘Let Me Go’, and ‘Mary’ sounded as perfect as you’d expect from an adept musician. However, having her back to half the audience was becoming too much for Marshall. “Sorry, I’m so introverted right now,” she said in-between songs. Her frustration eventually spilled over midway through ‘Let Sadness Not Be Attached To Your Name’ when the singer abandoned the track to give her guitar another a chance. There was a little more success as the dark bluesy tones of ‘Great Expectations’ rang through the Thornbury Theatre. Yet even as she soldiered through ‘Good Woman’ and ‘From Fur City’, there was still something noticeably not right with the sound. Multiple back and forths with the sound engineer continued without success. Despite encouragement from the audience, Marshall couldn’t hide the disappointment from her face. Eventually it all became too much. The musician vacated the stage for a break, giving what appeared to be a few choice words to the sound technician on her way out. As staff hurried to fix the problems in her absence, the break extended from a “few minutes” to 15. Sure, the sound issues were mostly rectified upon her re-entrance, but after a few more songs the audience began to disperse. It’s not because Marshall was below par, but with the last few trains apart to depart, they were left with no other option. Even for those that did stick tight for the exquisite ‘Bully’, the sound difficulties from earlier on will forever tarnish the more memorable moments of Marshall behind the piano. While finding faults in a musician’s performance can ultimately hamper your enjoyment of a gig, when external factors actively ruin the experience for all parties, it culminates in a bizarre and bitterly disappointing situation.

Cat Power was never truly allowed to display the best of her discography in an intimate setting; instead, the audience was resigned to the fact that they would have to wait until next time for such an experience.

Ouch!

And at Laneway, only the people in the front could hear her...

Thanks to Chee Seng Siow for writing this review for us:

Cat Power Solo

Thornbury theatre, Melbourne

31 Jan 2014

I’ve never seen Chan live before, and was kicking myself mentally for missing her March concert in
Melbourne last year. When she announced she was touring Australia again this year I jumped at the
chance- and she was playing solo! I love all her old songs and albums and so I thought this would be
a magical experience.

The Thornbury theatre is a very small and intimate venue, and people were there early bustling
about having their dinner at the tables surrounding the stage. I had general admission tickets so I sat
at the chairs behind. I could barely see Chan (a big reason why I came back a second time).

Mick Turner opened for Chan and I initially did not know who that was, but I quickly recognised the
guitar sound from Moon Pix, and I remembered this article that I read recently about the recording
of my favourite Cat Power album at Sing Sing in Richmond in 1998 not far from where I live.
http://www.messandnoise.com/articles/10560

Chan took the stage soon afterwards sporting a short, tousled ‘do. She had on a bulky denim jacket
and she padded on stage with her guitar in her arms. She looked haggard and beautiful, awkward
and hypnotic, sweet, shy, saucy.

That smoky voice filled the hall for more than two hours and it was just her and her guitar and her
piano.

Throughout the set Chan had issues with her gear, the amp was playing up, the microphones
weren’t working properly and the reverb was feeding back into her earpiece. So she kept wincing
and stopping songs halfway. I remember one thing she constantly said was: “Are you mad at me?”

She would say to the audio tech “Are you mad at me? Are you mad at me? The reverb is really killing
me, can you turn it down? Are you mad at me?” And at the end of the set to the audience: “I think
I’ve played maybe 36 songs, is that okay? Are you mad at me?” I thought that was quite endearing.

Throughout the technical issues it was clear she was quite frustrated and she apologised and said
“It’s like I want to build a house, but I don’t have to bricks to build the house I want to show you
guys.” But the audience was constantly reassuring that she sounded great, awesome, and I think she
took heart in that.

She played barefoot, and her guitar with her fingers and she stood on the balls of her feet, stomping
and shifting her hips with the music. She had this trick where she put two microphones right next
to each other, with one microphone with an effect on it, so it produced a doubling effect on her
voice that sounded very similar to the sound of her vocals on Moon Pix. She played so many songs,
Say, Naked If I Want To, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, I Don’t Blame You, and almost every song in her
catalogue save the songs from Sun.

She would play her songs, perhaps do a single chorus and a verse and weave immediately into the
next one, the chords from a song suddenly shifting to the jutting arpeggios of another.
She played damn near forty songs that night. I think because of all the tech issues she took a break
halfway out of frustration and wanted to make it up to the audience and go the extra mile. She had a
notebook with about thirty songs that she went through, and then she started taking requests from
the audience, smiling when she refused songs because she couldn’t remember, she was vibrant and
joking.

When she got to 33, she quipped that 33 would be a very special basketball number to stop at,
(Larry The Legend!) and she did a little French ditty which went “Raspberries and cigarettes…”
She played her heart out, I think she got on stage and nine, and finished half an hour past midnight?
I missed my last train home but I was so happy…

Nicolaoua wrote:Thanks to Chee Seng Siow for writing this review for us:

Chee Seng Siow, that's very nice of you ! Thanks for the 2 reviews  

Thanks for the kind words.

It's awesome to meet other Chan fans, reading through the forum and seeing the wealth of material here is a treat. (Hard to navigate though because I don't read french.)

Chee Seng wrote:Thanks for the kind words.

It's awesome to meet other Chan fans, reading through the forum and seeing the wealth of material here is a treat. (Hard to navigate though because I don't read french.)

Welcome to Ode to Chan!
I've changed the settings of the forum. It should be in english for everybody now.