Author: Christina LeBlanc
On Tuesday Feb. 10th, American singer/songwriter Cat Power made a rare appearance on-stage at the Avalon. Performing for two nights in Los Angeles, Cat Power commanded the stage with a voice seemingly much too powerful for such a small woman.
The show opened with a cover of “House of the Rising Sun,” originally sung by Bob Dylan in 1961. The song served as the perfect opener, setting the tone for a low-key, bluesy set with powerful vocals and bones-bared, all-about-the-music feel.
The set lasted just under two hours with no encore. Cat Power, however, took no breaks from the music, singing for almost every second of the time she was on-stage, pausing only for water breaks. The only words she said to the crowd during the concert came thirty minutes into the show, when she bashfully blurted into the mic, “What’s up L.A.?”
Her minimal banter on-stage mirrored her stage presence throughout the concert. She avoided the mic-stand in the center of the stage, preferring a mobile mic, and largely stayed to the sides of the stage, which were heavily shadowed from the blue and red lights of the set.
Throughout the concert she seemed shy of the crowd. While this would typically make for an awkward and largely uncomfortable show, Cat Power’s demeanor matched her music. She was girlishly likeable as she belted out melancholy songs tinged with a hint of heartache. She made you believe that she had been there before, and honey, she knows what it means to have the blues.
The playlist largely shied away from Cat Power’s more popular songs, such as “Sea of Love”, opting instead for angsty covers. She did sing “Metal Heart”, which was a crowd pleaser, and spiced up the middle of the set when it began to drag. She also played “I Don’t Blame You,” but changed it up so that the song was less emotionally plucky, and more similar to a 1990s grunge piece. While the live version was flawlessly sung, it didn’t garner the same intense response that other songs of the night caused.
She ended the night with a powerful display of her vocals, making direct eye contact with the crowd (a rarity in a concert full of shadowed profiles). During the last thirty seconds of the concert, she hit and held a low note that you could feel in your bones. The crowd was stunned to the point of silence.
Leaving the stage, Cat Power threw a full bouquet of white lilies to the crowd. After her descent into the audience, she personally thanked everyone at the front of the crowd, and seemed overwhelmed by the amount of fanfare over her performance. Her modest exit summed up the night as a whole, since she performed without the typical stage personality of most musicians. Throughout the concert it was clear that her love was for music and for singing, not for stardom.
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
