Last week, I got to cross one artist off of my must-see list: Neko Case blessedly arrived in Orlando, after rumors swarmed that she’d never play in Florida. She hadn’t come with her Canadian indie rock superfriends in The New Pornographers two years ago and we were worried she’d never come.
Well, once you get to hang out on the charts with Jay-Z and U2, as she described when Middle Cyclone debuted at #3 on the Billboard Charts upon its release, the Sunshine State become unavoidable. We may be America’s favorite geographical phallic joke, but we’re set to surpass New York state in population for the 2010 census. Eat that, Big Apple.
When I heard that she was coming I gasped. I could not believe it, and the moment my bank account would let me, I scooped up a pair of tickets. While they were up in the balcony, it didn’t matter. I was going to see Neko Case, who I can safely say is my favorite singer at this time.
It’s nice that I can say that. There are so many “singers” out there these days who hardly warrant even that title, let alone being someone’s favorite. She’s a critical darling and was also featured on Now That’s What I Call Music 34 (with Rhianna and the likes), but she is deserving of everything she’s accomplished. Not only can she belt it out, but her songs are simultaneously innovative and classic, so structurally creative, so rich in timbre and fastidious sonic detail.
It was that specific detail that was lost a little bit at the Plaza Theatre in Orlando, where her mike kept squealing and her steel guitarist made history as the MOST METAL steel guitarist ever. At one point in the show, he began playing a twangy lick as she finished some verse on a high note, and she turned around, stunned, as if she’d never heard him play that loudly before.
For some musicians, even those who don’t use ridiculous amplified guitars, they can just say, “fuck it,” turn up their instruments (even if they’re pianos), and keep rocking. Sonic Youth would have had a ball in there. But that doesn’t work quite so well with songs like “Prison Girls” or “Lady Pilot”, where amazingly enough, Case and her band have managed to take along much of their equipment and maintain the integrity of the songs as you hear them on her record. We don’t get a piano orchestra or any live vibraphone (damnit), but nonetheless. Some people hate it when they see a live show that sounds exactly like the album. This wasn’t true here, but I loved hearing the pitch perfect twang of the guitars, just as I listened to them for hours on the drive up to Orlando (and so many times before). I loved hearing the feedback in the key in which she sings “A Widow’s Toast” and clapping with glee knowing it was up next.
Singing wise, hile some of her low notes don’t come across as low live, and the mike failed to properly pick up some of her more soaring melismas, Case’s voice has just as much amazing clarity live as it does on record. I’d heard a New Pornographers live session from New York where Case sounded almost shaky, but I heard none of that last Thursday. Clear and bright, her voice came out as smooth as silk. However, when the sound guys in the theatre have the steel guitar turned up to 11, not even a belter capable of filling an airport hanger can compete with that.
Maybe as a result of this, Neko Case seemed nervous. Reportedly she’s a wee bit of a control freak in the studio, making sure all of those nuances come out, so she spent the large part between all of her very short songs tuning one of her six guitars onstage. She occasionally told a joke in between, and maybe because her comments were so few and far between, all of her jokes nailed their intended targets. Her background singer, the accomplished #2 Kelly Hogan, filled in much of the quiet time with her own commentary on the tour and hilarious stories of their sound manager trying to incorporate the word “balls” into an everyday greeting.
Overall, it was a beautiful night. Seeming shy despite her big smile, Muppet-like excited greetings, and her truly boisterous red hair that she kept wrestling with all night, it took a few songs for her and her band to settle in. But when a few members of the band went tacet and she sang “Middle Cyclone” – ironically a song that doesn’t even show off all she can do, but makes up for in its hushed, confessional, sparse beauty – the audience had a collective shiver. Some people up in the balcony (“with the riff-raff”) where my friend and I were kept leaving to get more and more beer, and some even left before her truly stellar four song encore. Well, balls on them – they missed the jokes about tomboys “crying with their pants on” that preceded a haunting version of “Vengeance Is Sleeping”.
My friend and I even went all crazed fan girl and stalked the tour bus (something I hadn’t done since 2005 when Billy Corgan was touring solo), and walked away without meeting her but with signed stuff. All in all a pretty amazing evening. As she said, after she promised she’d be back, “Balls to you, Orlando!”
few other reviews and links of interest:
Review from the night before!
NPR bit (and podcast link) about a previous show this year.
Listen to her, by her, for FREE!!
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