Cat Power
06.10.06
Town Hall (New York)
words: Nicole D'Andrea
photos: Steph Goralnick

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Chan Marshall has a set of bangs covering her entire forehead and most of her eyes that would make any hipster jealous. She’s also just as bummed out as the rest of us too, which is why she was so quickly able to sell out two shows at Town Hall. We relate to her, even if we don’t call ourselves something as cool sounding as Cat Power. And that was even after she cancelled her last show there on Valentine’s Day. Surely it’s worse being dumped by Chan Marshall than by your boyfriend or girlfriend.

But she knew on some level that we were disappointed for her missed shows and was determined to make up for it. Her band, the Memphis Rhythm Band, began playing before she walked out onstage, and marched their way into a lively version of the title track of Cat Power’s latest album, The Greatest. This was the band that also played on this album and brought a tremendously fuller sound to the stage than they did to the rather constricted album. It is a good album – we’re not going to deny that, it’s her best – but when you hear the Memphis Rhythm Band onstage, you realize that they can do a lot more than what The Greatest offers.

Cat Power herself isn’t half the musician that any one of the members of the Memphis Rhythm Band is, but that’s got a lot to do with experience. She may have seven impressive albums under her bold vintage belt, but the members of Memphis have been playing since before she was born. It brought old with new in a way, although the band didn’t seem particularly old and Cat Power not particularly new.

Still, they were a good mix. It was a Southern sounding band for a Georgia-born girl. The Southern soul of the Memphis Rhythm Band that had everyone tapping their foot, helped to shield Cat Power’s melancholy lyrics. If you went to this show looking to be depressed, you should have stayed at home and put all of her albums on shuffle with a bottle of wine in your grasp.

The show was comprised mainly of songs from The Greatest, and were also played, for some strange reason, in the ordered that they appear on the album. She also did several covers, not terribly surprising since she does have an album called The Covers, and has been known to cover everyone from The White Stripes to Bob Dylan. That night at Town Hall, selections included Nina Simone’s “Wild by the Wind” and The Animals’ “In the House of the Rising Sun.” Each were surprising and extremely well received from the audience. It is ironic since the album is called The Greatest, since so many of her fans seem to think that she is just that. The question, of course, is does Cat Power agree.

Perhaps she does, and finally decided to have fun with her position as Indie Darling. She had a costume change. If there was anything that happened that was going to throw the audience for a loop, this was it. Still, now she was famous and could do such things. She came back in a white dress and did a solo set. The set with the band was more fun, even for her it seemed, but she was able to stand on her own.

It was a relatively normal performance for Marshall, who is often prone to cutting songs short or going on petty rants between songs. She did leave the stage several times at Town Hall, but returned within reasonable time, constantly sipping her tea. She also changed the lyrics of the song “Hate” to say that she didn’t hate herself, when on the album she said that she did. We were looking at a changed woman, and somehow, it made the rest of us folk feel better.

For someone who left the music scene to be a babysitter and then has made her way back in it to be even more successful, there will be future opportunities to see Cat Power play live. She’s a treat to see, despite her past inconsistent mood swings. However, with her more steady live performances and the critically acclaimed album The Greatest, she’ll be warming our hearts for a while.