“Last time I played this room I was opening for Rufus, and this time, I’m opening for, well, me,” proclaims Joan Wasser, or Joan as Police Woman. In a few months, the singer/songwriter has gone from selling out the 300-capacity upstairs banquet to filling the main room, which holds four times as many punters. All this has been propelled by her debut, Real Life, which has seen immense success in Holland. What has brought Wasser such acclaim is beyond me. Granted, the deep-voiced songstress has opened for Wainwright and Anthony and the Johnsons, but based on her own merit, all this acclaim is perplexing. The album is good, but trails behind other female piano and guitar-wielding singers like Feist and Amy Mann, whom she shares similarities with. I like the record, but not enough to sardine myself between two Dutch tree trunks on yet another evening laced with rain and wind. So, fast forward an hour or so and Wasser and her band has come and gone, having wafted through eleven songs, leaving the sold-out crowd out of breath, exhausted from hanging on each note. The crowd loved it, yes, but I didn’t. I was completely left out it seems, as instead of falling in love with Joan as Police Woman, I felt as if I was sitting awkwardly through a corking party I was not invited to.

Why was that? Well, the set was mellow. Exhaustingly mellow. While Real Life spurts out some of the blood oozing from the trials hidden beyond its title, live Wasser preferred a downtempo approach. At first it felt real, honest, surprisingly fresh. By the night's end, it was sucking the life out of me. 'Eternal Flame' and 'Real Life', both standouts on the record, lacked vigor, ending up flaccid by the second chorus. Not that these are rough songs - quite the opposite - but too much was missing from their core to elevate the mood past sombre. Wasser prefers to leave more notes out than she puts in, and consequently, these two songs suffered from their own simplicity. 'Christobel', her second-to-new single, was another example. It's not that simplicity is damaging in itself, but boredom is. Still, the crowd loved it. I can only speak for myself.

One two-note song after another grows tiring, especially when they are played acoustic, surreptitiously or intentionally quiet. Three or four numbers of the sort is appreciated, and moments when she took over the piano for a solo soiree were nothing short of beautiful. Yet taken in its entirety, the set was exhausting. Whether Wasser played guitar or piano, both were barely amplified, and drummer Ben Perowsky and bassist Rainy Orteca’s sparse contributions did nothing to bolster the songs or mood. For a classically-trained pianist, maybe it's that I was expecting something more polyrhythmic or challenging melodically.

Songs dedicated to her mother ('I Survive'), Elliott Smith ('We Don’t Own It') and fucking standing up against a wall ('Up Against The Wall') were especially well-received, despite being as quiet as the rest. Moreover, Wasser took a few minutes - minutes not moments - between each song to chatter, explaining each song in depth or harking on about nothing, before arresting her instrument. Like the stillness of the music, Wasser’s talkative nature became too much. She would not shut up between songs. Either she was pining over her ivories in a minor key or talking.

I listened to the record again on the way home, and unlike earlier spins, fell in love with it. It's rich in textures, an album that matches jazz with lounge, pop, folk and rock, and does it harmoniously. But that doesn't change the disappointment of the show. It helped me understand her rise to success, maybe, but confused me more as to why her live performance fluttered instead of soared.

Photography by Sam Mirlesse