Let me address both.
The music was good. Cat Power and the Dirty Delta Blues: Wow. Chan Marshall really has a deep folky-soulful voice.
She is just a little pixie girl, but you can see and hear the strength in her. Her voice was soft and whispery, but bold and commanding at the same time. She sang a bunch of short 2-3 minute songs, including old standard covers and some songs off her new album, The Greatest.
I got to the show halfway through The Childballads performance. They're music was kind of old to me. To me they seemed like another Brooklyn band, lower-east side mullet wearing, fashionista type. Which is fine...the music was okay. It was nothing I haven't heard before. You know, drum drum drum, a guitar riff, a drugged up completely-unaware singer, blah blah indie lyric. Sorry guys, but I couldn't even focus on the music what with all the drugged out bandmates/punching audience/Nag Champa fumes blowing in my face/random girls dancing the cha cha on stage...
I'm serious, the show was crazy. All the antics really detracted from the music and made it hard to appreciate. After seeing the show I came home and googled the Childballads.
Apparently the lead singer, Stewart Lupton, predated Julian Casablancas of The Strokes as the "guy who was always messed up but still managed to sing into the microphone and sound ok". But his previous band split due to his heroin addiction. Well, I can say with pride that I have now seen someone on the effects on heroin. I think. I mean, I don't normally hang out with hard drug users, so I've never seen it in person and movies about drugs make me nauseated, so I haven't really seen it in the movies. All I know was that Stewart was effed up.
See Stewart? He's the one with the haunting, lifeless look and sunken cheekbones. He was stumbling around the stage, incoherently muttering between songs, holding a burning ciggy in his hand that I SWORE was going to catch his crepe paper scarf on FIRE. He knocked over the mike stand and at one point, someone (I think his manager) came over to the stage and gave The Sign to his bandmates that I assume meant, For the Love of God himself, please end this show - before our boy passes out or hurts himself.
After their set ended, the girl behind me punched another girl in the Chevy Chase and threw her drink in her face. The drink splashed all over me. I stood there thinking "I should probably leave", notwithstanding the fact that I had come alone and was a little nervous to be in a bad neighborhood late at night. This was just increasing the paranoia. Anyway the guards all came over and people dispersed, but it was really weird.
Soon enough Chan and her buddies came on stage. She was sick, but was a doll and apologized throughout the show for sounding like crap. Which she didn't, she sounded amazing. She had on these cute white shoes and moonwalked across the stage the entire night. No wonder she is crowned as the Indie Darling. She was like a walking ad for Urban Outfitters. And she alternated sips from a coke can and tea. It was really endearing.
Like these, but white.I really don't know what to think about everything. I'm still a little tired from all the antics from The Childballads. I'm sad Cat Power didn't sing any of other old songs at ALL, because they are so deliciously good. He War? Nothing. Good Woman? Nothing. Still, she put on a good show and the Dirty Delta Blues were really great. I was entertained, even if I didn't get what I bargained for. Actually, I was bargaining for a little stage drama, because Chan is known for breaking down on stage (I think we were all kind of waiting for that to happen), but I had no idea the drama that Stewart would bring. He had enough drama to pass around for the whole of the DC metropolitan area.
But combined into the total package...
Rocktober gives Cat Power 6 out of 10 stars.
I'm tired. Who needs a drink?
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