Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

star witness

Last night, I got to see a great show by Neko Case at the 9:30 Club. And, man, does she have a voice. I’d heard her on recordings, of course, but it’s something else to hear her live and know that, yes, that hearty, soulful sound is her real singing voice.

She performed “Star Witness,” my new favorite song of the moment (there’s an MP3 download in the left sidebar of a Fox Confessor review at anti.com), about halfway through her set. “Hold On, Hold On” came at the end of the main set, and she finished the encore with a rousing performance of “John Saw That Number.” (For the latter, I do wish that the two extra “backup singers” she’d dragged out from backstage were more familiar with the song; they stood rather uncomfortably to the side for most of the song. Not that I necessarily blame them, as they seemed kind of surprised to be called out in the first place. But still.)

At the very end, she gave a quick plug for the more pop-oriented band she’s in, The New Pornographers, whose show next month at the 9:30 Club sold out absurdly fast. (By “absurdly fast,” I mean “I was still dithering about whether to go when they sold out, at which point I decided that, now that I can’t go, I really want to go.”) If you haven’t heard their new song “My Rights Versus Yours” (MP3), I highly recommend it.

I don’t usually comment on this, but the lighting design was well-done for this show. There was one moment in particular that stood out to me: At the beginning of a song whose name escapes me, everyone onstage was draped in teal-green light — except for Neko, who had a yellow spotlight that really called attention to her red hair and offered a striking (and visually complementary) contrast between her and the rest of the band.

The visual was so memorable that I really wanted to take a picture — but, sadly, I had been asked to surrender my camera at the door for the “absolutely no cameras” show. I wish I’d known in advance — there was nothing on my ticket or on the 9:30 Club Web site to that effect — or I would have left it at home. The club did have a pretty good system in place, though, for checking cameras: 1) When I dropped off my camera, a club staff member checked my ID and wrote my name on a piece of masking tape, which he taped to the camera; 2) I then had to show ID again to have a staffer retrieve my camera from the milk crate they’d used for storage. With no camera of my own during the show, then, I have to admit I felt a certain amount of childish righteousness when I saw the club’s security staff swoop in anytime they saw someone taking pictures with a smuggled-in camera. (Though, conversely, I do have some sympathy/admiration for one big Neko fan who did manage to snap some photos and even stayed after to get a copy of the set list and have her CD signed.)

Updated 8/17 at 6:02 p.m. - DCist’s Ian Buckwalter has a good review of the show.