The venue is packed and there is a lot of love in the air. Love for Chan Marshall, that is, for she is Cat Power, backed by the Dirty Delta Blues band and in receipt of abundant carnations, roses, and rapt stares from her audience. “Love you!” more than one member of the crowd ventures. “Love ya more,” she replies. A little odd maybe, but we’ll let her have that one.
Hers is a fascinating story, but one we won’t delve into too deeply – suffice to say, her lifestyle has been more than slightly wayward since she began her career as Cat Power some fifteen years ago. Before that, even, and eventually culminating in hospitalisation due to alcohol abuse on the eve of her acclaimed seventh album The Greatest being released. Her competency as a live artist was called into question prior to this, following erratic behaviour onstage and a pervading self-doubt that led to some sets halted barely fifteen minutes after they’d began.
In 2008 it’s a very different story. Her eighth album Jukebox has been warmly received subsequent to The Greatest claiming America’s Shortlist Prize last year, and in a series of almost uncomfortably candid interviews given since her breakdown two years’ previous, Chan seems happy and encouraged by her level of success, bolstered by her fans’ support and confident in a live setting. Not long returned from an awareness trip for Charity: Water in Africa and Asia, cut to a brisk January night in West London, betrothed audience and waistcoat-clad Marshall pulling some intriguing footwork out of the bag as she opens with a sprightly ‘Don’t Explain’, and here we are.
Self-assurance, it must be said, is not particularly necessary tonight; confidence is not lacking in her vocal delivery, and quite frankly, nor should it be. If one thing is immediately apparent, it’s Marshall’s innate, tremendous ability as a singer. Shimmying relentlessly across the stage, her face undulates, contorts in every inflection of delivery, making for a captivating performance. Her voice itself is strong, imbued with the sort of weary gravity you might expect from someone of her past. After a wonderful appropriation of Hank Williams’ ‘Ramblin’ Man’ (re-titled ‘(Wo)Man’) and played as a sultry bar-room number) she pointedly thanks the audience “for coming back”.
Though the evening isn’t faultless. The Dirty Delta Blues fail to unleash often enough: while stirring on the rapturously received ‘New York, New York’ (Jim White’s drumming a joy to witness), too often they slip into the sort of soporific groove that occasionally tarnishes Marshall’s full-lengths. Marshall herself is predominantly charming, though becomes frustrated with the (admittedly) over-enthusiastic lightshow and asks the audience to forgive her a few too many times. Cigarettes smoked on stage raise a few eyebrows as well (is that really okay? Anymore…?) – but this is clutching at straws. A distracting spotlight or perceived flaw are the type of thing that might have resulted in premature house lights in the past – here they’re merely an obstacle to be dealt with; to brush aside before the next song.
‘She’s Got You’, uncharacteristically of Cat Power covers, stays true to its country roots and benefits from a lightness of touch, simple though by no means simplistic. It’s in her own material Marshall truly comes alive though – ‘Metal Heart’ and ‘Lived In Bars’ bring forth huge applause, the latter particularly affecting given the transformation Marshall has undertaken the past couple of years, and happily giving the Dirty Delta Blues opportunity to really open up.
Sadly there is no encore, though as kisses are blown and salutes offered to the sold-out crowd the general feeling is one of triumph – of an artist finally comfortable in her own skin and of her own formidable talent. And this, surely, is something to celebrate.
Photo: Front Rows, Pits and Pavements
