3/2/03 - NYC, Tonic

**Cokelike** Sat 9 Jun - 9:41

3/2/03 - NYC, Tonic

Incomplete setlist

I Dont Blame You

Review from the Village Voice (also 3/4/03):
http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-03-11/music/get-yourself-free/

Get Yourself Free
Fool for the Kitty
By Emma Pearse Tuesday, Mar 11 2003

"I hope you like this tempo," Cat Power said once onstage. "It's the only one I know."

When Chan Marshall, this Atlanta-born enigma, is in a rage, her music brews and shakes through, but her fringed hair doesn't get wild. She doesn't swing her guitar around, and the sense is that it's painful to play. Like What Would the Community Think? in '96 and The Covers Record in 2000, Cat Power's latest, You Are Free, has the effect of that odd, quiet kid in school who says little and says it softly—what comes out resonates for its conviction of mind.

"I'm so stressed out." In front of a sold-out Tonic crowd, in between deep breaths last Sunday night. "I don't blame you," the chorus swings in the album's tone-setting introduction. The song is upbeat and generous in mood. The feline voice—always dead in tune—gushes through the triangle shape of her upward-peaked mouth. Her fingers pat over alternating (and for her, rare) major chords. The song is simple and like a slow, warm dance. Much of this new album is. It leaves listeners with the artist's signature somberness, moves freely within but hardly away from what may as well be her very own minor Fs and Cs. But You Are Free demonstrates a subtle, hopeful change in sentiment—a relief from Cat Power's melancholy.