Cat Power - “He War” from You Are Free
I saw Cat Power three years ago at the Vic on one of the coldest days of that winter. It was brutal out and rather than playing weather appropriate renditions of already bleak Cat Power songs, she played a boring yet upbeat set of soulful, reworked renditions of recent material (The Greatest, a few covers, and a few older songs). It was not the kind of show I wanted to see. Technically speaking, the performance was great. She was very charismatic and endearing, and her backing band was spot on. However, I sort of wanted to experience one of those disastrous, collar tugging performance meltdowns she was known for - a crying fit, an over-emotional solo version of a deeply personal song, a violent storm off stage, anything that could have made the night feel a little less like “An Evening with Chan Marshall” and more like “A show Cat Power is playing.” By this point though, she’d straightened out her life from what I’ve read and her live shows benefited from that so I wasn’t keeping my fingers crossed. The whole experience was pretty uneventful for me, but that doesn’t change how good so many of her songs are. “He War” from You Are Free still retains that jittery uncertainty that was so prominent in her early work despite the album being a big leap forward in maturity in structure. It really helped lay the groundwork of who she would become as an artist. I wish she would have played this one, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
