So, I returned to my former place of employment for the second time in a fortnight (as I took a spare ticket my brother had to see The Black Keys, a band who I'd only listened to their album once but ... I wasn't paying 
) and saw Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall, aka the best thing about My Blueberry Nights. I've had her last two cds since March and I've heard stuff before that for the last 6 months, caught her on Jools and she looked very interesting live so I picked up a ticket and went down and am very glad I did.
First thing that was good is it was upstairs in bar 5 (that's my insider description 
), so you have about 500 people in a very intimate setting. I didn't even have to try to get about 4 people back from the rail. Second good thing was her voice, it's just absolutely there from start to finish. They did about 1hr 45 mins as best as I can gather and even without encores (I bet she was on a 10.30pm curfew) there could be no complaints as to the show given. She basically played the whole of Jukebox, plus the bonus disc, one off The Greatest (Lived in Bars) plus a handful of new covers.
The latter was the really inspired stuff. As you can tell from her version of New York (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpFwnf6F_GY), it's not always apparant what she's covering, it's that level of inspired. She did a version of Tracks of My Tears which sounded like The Rolling Stones doing Satisfaction. I also only clocked she was doing a cover of Fleetwood Mac's Dreams about a minute and a half into the song. Much easier to pick out The Dark End of the Street, I must confess. The best of the bunch was her singing Blue Moon, then slipped into Try a Little Tenderness then back again, it's just genius what she does with some of these.
Watching her is best described as watching a tigress prowling up and down in her cage, although the longer it goes the more she gives you indications she's actually enjoying her captivity onstage. She didn't thank the audience for applause until wayyy past the hour mark, but either it was the way the set list was put together (completely different to her last show, as it seems) or just how her evening went but she started brooding less and smiling a lot more the longer the show went. Her guitarist was good and her drummer excellent, and the bassist and keyboard player were fine. Really nicely balanced too, only very seldom did her voice not carry over them.
Exactly what I hoped for, very glad I made the effort. Oh that I can be bothered to do the same tomorrow with the womens' tennis on in Birmingham, it's a bitch to get in but I may even book now online just in case I can't get them on the door. Oh well, it's past 1.00am, I may as well see if I can get them online, anyway, rambling, if there's an entry tomorrow it won't be about films.