Marissa Nadler and Emily Jane White at Café Du Nord, San Francisco, CA, 12/18/11
I was having one of those days where, even though I had a bunch of things to do, I felt completely unmotivated to tackle any of them. Instead, I mostly sat in my chair. Towards evening, I pulled myself out of my funk and took a short walk as the sun set, and managed to get a few tasks done. Finally, the time to depart for the show arrived, and I headed northward. Circumstances decreed that I would attend the show alone, but that has never stopped me. I just hoped that I would find a parking space more quickly than we did on Friday (see previous review).
I needn’t have worried. I was actually inside the Café Du Nord within an hour, which is only about 15 minutes longer than the time it took us to drive 2 miles and park on Friday. All of the seats were already either filled or spoken for, and the six tables at the front all had “reserved” signs on them, so I found a spot by the wall to the left. But then, minutes before showtime, a Café Du Nord employee emerged from the kitchen area and removed the signs from the tables, and I quickly slipped into a chair. A waitress appeared, and soon I had a pizza and a soda. Easy parking! Food! Great seat!
I hadn’t previously heard opener Emily Jane White, other than the usual last-minute online listen before the show. My initial assessment, based on the track The Law, (which can be downloaded for free on the site linked above) from her latest album, “Ode To Sentience”, was that she was a good match for Marissa Nadler, with a similar fingerpicked guitar style, and a mood of introspective melancholy. Her set bore this out. Her voice is a bit lower and more earthy sounding that Nadler’s, and she switched between acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and keyboards. She was joined at various times by a bass clarinet player, and a mini string section consisting of a cellist and a violinist. Being new to her music, I can’t comment on the setlist, but I liked all of the songs and look forward to hearing her recordings. It's nice to know that there is another local artist of this calibre. Unfortunately, her merch table was a bit light, with only one copy of her second release (snapped up by the guy in front of me in line), and no copies of her third release, the aforementioned “Ode To Sentience”. I bought her first disc, “Dark Undercoat”, which is playing in the background as I type. Marissa Nadler had no merchandise, but did leave a note directing people to check out her online shop.
I’ve seen Marissa Nadler 3 times now, and each time I’ve come away from the shows liking the openers well enough to buy their music. First it was Mariee Sioux and Mountain Home, then it was Alela Diane, and now I can add Emily Jane White to the list. Once she got on stage, Nadler mysteriously mentioned more than once that she was uncertain if and when she’d be back in the area, which worries me, even though her absence will no doubt save me money.
This particular performance wasn’t part of a tour, but rather a one-off show because Nadler likes San Francisco and happened to be in the area for other reasons (on her Facebook page, there are veiled references to doing some recordings up in the redwoods somewhere). More than once, she mentioned that San Francisco one of her favorite places to play, mostly due to the respectful audiences.
She didn’t have a band with her, but did have an impressive array of acoustic guitars. Her fingers flowed over the strings and her otherworldly voice was as exquisite as ever. She really does get a dynamic sound out of her instruments, sort of like what I’d imagine composer Giya Kancheli would sound like if he played acoustic guitar. Sometimes her quiet fingerpicking erupts into crystalline fury before flowing away into quieter territory again. The songs all sounded excellent, and if anything, she wrung even more pathos out of the songs than usual, dropping her voice to a whisper at perfectly timed moments, and to a near shudder at others. She also took the time to explain the initial inspiration for some of the songs, and chatted about her ongoing battle with stage fright and agoraphobia. Despite the fact that she has never gotten over her stage fright, she carries on performing because she feels that music helps people. She called the music a medication and a meditation, hence the title of this review. It definitely cleared away the cobwebs of the funk I was in earlier in the day, so I’m here to say that I appreciate the fact that she feels the fear and gets up on stage anyway. That’s the definition of courage, after all – feeling the fear but not letting it stop you.
My favorite moments of the evening were the beautiful rendition of the song Silvia, from “Songs III: Bird on the Water”, the two brand new songs (played live for the very first time), and her cover of Leonard Cohen’s Famous Blue Raincoat, which is one of my very favorite songs. The new songs were very nice – the first one, called Apostle, was about alcoholism, and the second one was about her parents. She promises that her upcoming album, a sister album to her recent self-titled release, will be “very dark”. I can’t wait! She also revisited her first album, “Ballads of Living and Dying”, by playing the first and last songs, Fifty Five Falls and Annabelle Lee. This made me happy too, since Annabelle Lee is perhaps my favorite song on that album. Two songs from “Ivy and the Clovers” were played as well, the haunting Salutations in the Dark and the less than cheerful All Love Must Die. The bulk of the set seemed given over to “Songs III…” and this year’s self-titled release. In addition to the songs already mentioned, she played Diamond Heart, Dying Breed, Thinking of You (all from “Songs III”), Little King, In Your Lair, Bear, The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You (which she pointed out is not actually a happy song), and Mr. John Lee Revisited (all from her s/t release). There were probably a couple of others that I’m not remembering at the moment.
Check out the new video for In Your Lair, Bear:
I think she played for around an hour and a half. All of my attempts to take pictures were foiled by the reddish stage lights. My camera really doesn’t like red, especially in low-light conditions. The two photos that accompany this post were the best of the lot. That’s a minor quibble though, because it really is all about the music. On the way home, I dialed up Marissa Nadler on my iPod, discovering that I have 75 songs of hers on there. Definitely more than enough for the ride home.
I really hope that she comes back.
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