Cat Power
A review of her live in Tripod, Dublin (10 May 2007)
Review
Snapshot:
Cat Power, or Chan Marshall to the taxman, has been on my 'Must See
Live' list ever since coming across her 'Cross Bones Style' video late one
sleepless night on MTV many moons ago. Now that I can at last tick her off the
list, has it been worth the wait? In a word, no. I was bored rigid.
The CLUAS Verdict? 3 out of 10
Full review: So which Chan Marshall will turn up tonight? Will it be the
inwardly-tortured soul that could quite possibly bring the gig to a premature
end or are we to see, as recent reports suggest, a newly reconstructed southern
blues chanteuse? In the end, we get a mixture of both.
Quietly sneaking on to a
ludicrously underlit stage, Marshall is barely visible as she and her Dirty
Delta Blues band launch into a series of indistinguishable Southern country-soul
arrangements, lifted mainly from 'The Greatest'. It's around here that the
problems arise and it's to do with the aforementioned album. Though it does boast
a couple of stand-out tracks, 'The Greatest' as a whole is a rather inert,
one-paced collection and its songs, as on record, fail to engage in a live
setting. The strongest tracks 'The Greatest' and 'Lived In Bars' are the only
salient moments in a tedious first hour or so. Stifling yawns, I consider
leaving early but I persist 'til the end, thinking that matters could only
improve. I should have left.
We watch as Marshall derives huge pleasure from
flinging the microphone cable in circular motion and flitting erratically around
the darkened stage like a restless shadow. In the latter stages of this
interminable endurance test, she does the obligatory covers: 'Dark End Of The
Street', 'Satisfaction' and a Gnarls Barkley/Patsy Cline 'Crazy' hybrid are
rolled out but it's too little, too late.
Some tracks from 'Moon Pix' or 'You
Are Free' may have redeemed matters somewhat but ultimately there is a laziness
here that borders on contempt for the audience.
And yet, what exactly do you expect from a Cat Power gig? Nothing is ever
straightforward with the ever-capricious Marshall and part of her allure has
always been the often chaotic nature of her performance style. The problem with
tonight is that Marshall seems reasonably in control. Apart from her obsession
with microphone cables, there are no abruptly truncated songs, no tearful
breakdowns or incoherent asides. The new 'soulful' Cat Power has, well, lost her
soul. She will always have that heart-wrenching voice full of bruised
disappointment (not to mention her striking, melancholic prettiness) but she
just isn't as intriguing as the Indie Queen of a few years back. Bring back the
beautiful fuck-up, I say. At least that would have been far more compelling than
this crushing bore of a gig.
Ken Fallon
Check out the discussion that took place on the CLUAS Discussion board about
this
Cat Power gig in Dublin
Check out the CLUAS review of Cat Power's 'You
are Free' album.
