Reviewed onMonday May 16
As the woman of the hour once so famously proclaimed, she’s lived in bars, danced on tables and swum with sharks. Here in Australia, she’s also broken down onstage, been unable to sing and spent more time talking than actually performing. It’s an inconsistency that has often plagued her attendance numbers as well as her live reputation for not entirely unfounded reasons. For every great Cat Power show story, there’s a tragic one to counteract it. Thankfully, enough of a crowd has gathered in the always stunning surrounds of the City Recital Hall – if anything, as a signal of good faith and belief in Chan Marshall as an artist and a performer.
Interestingly, the first thing that one picks up upon is the silence. This is not a hoot-and-holler operation, folks – out of respect to the stunning surrounds of the venue, not a peep is made until a song reaches a definitive conclusion. As Marshall opens with the simplistic strum of ‘Old Detroit’, she leaves her audience mesmerised by her unmistakable smoky voice – so much so, that many do not notice the seamless transition into her famous reworking of the Rolling Stones classic ‘Satisfaction’, in which she recontextualises a shout into a whisper with flourishing results.
A persistent cough sidetracks her from time to time across the evening, which explains why she attempts to refrain from too much talking, apart from a couple of awkwardly funny moments in which she notes the audience’s discomfort. “I can see you smiling,” she notes wryly, “but you’re not laughing.”
Instead, this is a set where the music – when it reveals itself in all of its splendour – speaks for itself. Some songs, such as Moon Pix deep cut ‘Color And The Kids’ or ‘3, 6, 9’ from her most recent LP, 2012’s Sun, take on a Dylanesque transformation – almost unrecognisable until a key phrase is uttered. Others, such as You Are Free standout ‘I Don’t Blame You’ and the title track to 2006’s The Greatest, are instantly picked up on and subsequently applauded.
No matter where Marshall takes the performance, it has a cohesive flow that almost feels dreamlike in its warmth and depth. Toward the end of the set, Marshall affirms how grateful she is to be alive and to be in a room of people who listen to her music. The love is mutual, and the risk pays off.
