| | Christine and I made the last minute decision to see Katie Herzig at the Hotel Cafe on Monday night. I was lamenting the fact that Katie seemed to only be touring with Vienna Teng on the East Coast, and doing her own thing out here, but it looks like the joke was on me. Katie was actually opening for Vienna Teng at this show, despite the rest of their tour together being outside of California. Why it wasn't listed on Katie's website, I have no idea, but that was a helluva surprise once we arrived at the venue!
Anyway, even if Vienna hadn't been there, Katie's set provided plenty to gush about. It was her and an all-girl band... Katie on acoustic, one gal pal on electric, and another on cello. The three harmonized beautifully and Katie's delectable voice filled the small venue with ease. You can tell from Katie's music that she is a playful soul, and I expected, this was reflected perfectly in her live show, from the "fake trumpet solo" during "Forevermore" to the (presumably) older song "Hey Na Na", which sounded more like a dance/pop sort of thing than one could expect to get away with in a nightclub/coffeehouse type of venue. She offered a handful of other tracks from Apple Tree as well as a few new ones, and when asking for requests to determine the final song, it came down to "Hologram" vs. "How the West Was Won". (I was one of the folks who shouted for "Hologram", and it won, since the vote came down to a personal friend of Katie's in the audience who was celebrating a birthday that day.)
Oh, and Vienna came on stage to sing and play piano with her during "Wish You Well", which greatly increased my appreciation for what I thought was one of the lesser songs on Katie's album. Katie has now sung with Vienna Teng and Jars of Clay, thereby reducing the degrees of separation between my two favorite artists to 2.
Setlist:
- Sumatra
- Songbird
- Forevermore
- Oh My Darling
- Two Hearts Are Better than One
- Wish You Well (w/ Vienna Teng)
- Hey Na Na
- I Hurt Too
- Hologram
Now for Vienna's set... it had a number of the same songs from when I saw her two months ago, but for most of the set it was Vienna solo, joined for two songs by a "professor" who contributed accordion and clarinet. She had her looping device, and in addition to its expected use for audience-contributed background vocals on "Gravity" and the entirety of "The Last Snowfall" looped on her own, she also used it to rebuild "1Br/1Ba" from the ground up, rhythm and BGV's and all, save for the aforementioned clarinet, which got in a hell of a solo. The set was heavy on Dreaming Through the Noise, which I can't complain about since it's my favorite Vienna album, rounded out by tracks from her new disc and one oldie. (We were encouraged to hoot, holler, and catcall during the acapella "Grandmother Song", though Vienna noted that it might seem a bit odd to be catcalling her grandmother... who she supposed was pretty hot as grandmothers go.) Excellent set as always - I may prefer her with a full band, but seeing her solo took me back to the good old days when Waking Hour was still the only thing I had of hers to treasure.
Christine was a trooper - she was expecting a 1-hour concert starting at 8 instead of a 2-hour concert starting at 9. Thankfully it was someone she really liked (plus she missed Vienna when I went two months ago due to school), so she hung in there. But she has to get up at 6:30 tomorrow - OUCH. She thanked me for a good date, so thankfully I'm not in the doghouse for insisting we stick around until the end. (Seriously, she almost nodded off during "Recessional". Beautiful as the performance was, I can't say that I blame her.)
Setlist:
- Blue Caravan
- Gravity
- Antebellum
- In Another Life
- 1Br/1Ba
- City Hall
- Recessional
- The Last Snowfall
- Grandmother Song
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| | Posted 7/1/2009 9:38 PM - 11 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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