ComfortComes

Cat Power and the Dirty Delta Blues Band Live at the Earl, ATL (07/12/2009)

When I went to see Cat Power at the Earl, I had hopes it would be a kind of symbolic show, some kind of a return to a less guarded, or more guarded depending on how you look at it, Cat Power.

You see the last few times I’ve seen her, she’s played at big venues like the Tabernacle and even the Apollo Theater, staying in the dark spots of the stage, security guards at her feet, the sound of her band booming. But Atlanta’s not only the birthplace of Cat Power, it’s that of Chan Marshall’s too. This place was her hangout. And the Earl’s about a hundred times grungier than any of the places she’s been playing at, and about a hundredth of the size, perhaps why the tickets were about four times as much as the Earl’s usual price.

The first band that played was an Atlanta based band called Tenement Halls. It wasn’t really a band, but rather the main guy solo with a really reverbed out guitar and a stylized voice. Sometimes I thought that with the amount of reverb sound being produced, that guitar just wasn’t cutting it, but overall the guy was pretty good and I was sad when he left the stage. I don’t know if he’s originally from Austin but it sounded like he was.

The Jukebox/ Dirty Delta Blues sound is like so groovy at first. You wanna dance and promise to only listen to James Brown for a while. Chan came out all smiley and I really thought she waved to me. “I get more nervous playing in Atlanta than anywhere else,” she said. “We love you!” a fan shouted voicing the excitement everyone seemed to have for the night. “That’s the problem” she said. The problem with the show, for me, was one, that’s it’s the same one I saw a year ago, not just with respect to songs but the arrangements and general vibe of it.

You listen to Cat Power because you want your heart broken by her. And yeah, some of the covers came close to that. “A Woman Left Lonely” stood out. Greg Foreman’s scratchy croon under Chan’s butter knife definitely seemed to epitomize the core of why this girl’s gotten famous. But altogether, the band seemed kind of jaded. They’ve been on the road for a long time and you can tell and it’s not a good thing.

I don’t have a problem with Cat Power doing covers (the first cover’s record blows any other covers record out of the water) but all these covers sound the same. Even one of the couple originals, “I Don’t Blame You,” seemed to be stripped of its melody and heart and pasted on this blues/ rock background. I’m tired of leaving Cat Power shows feeling like I’ve missed out on something, like it could’ve been something more. She can do better. Or at least stop trying to. She’s more hidden now than she was with all the lights turned off and her back to the audience.

Here’s the setlist:

House of the Rising Sun
Dreams
Makin Believe
Dark End of the Street
Women Left Lonely
Silver Stallion
I Lost Someone
Lord Help the Poor and Needy
Song to Bobby
Fortunate Son
Metal Heart
Blue
She’s Got You
Moon
Don’t Explain
I Don’t Blame You
Ramblin’ Woman

By Mary Miller