On Monday night, The Memphis River Band with Cat Power made a stop at the 9:30 club to deliver a moving and personal performance.
The band made a discreet entry and faced a surprisingly quiet audience. But the crowd burst into applause when Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, finally sauntered on to the stage.
She blew everyone's mind with her first three songs, "The Greatest," "Living Proof" and "Lived in Bars," the opening songs from her latest album. These three powerful ballads drew the audience into Marshall's soulful world.
The unique quality of these songs demonstrates how she manages to bring her songwriting to a more complex level, where melancholy and joy are combined to create moving music. The addition of orchestral accompaniment added depth to her performance, making it lively.
In the past, her music has been tinted with depression, taking its cue from the difficulties in her life -- notably alcoholism, which has had an impact on the very essence of her writing and also her ability to successfully make it all the way through a performance.
As she sang "There's nothing like living in a bottle/and nothing like ending it all for the world," she made a quick gesture of slitting her own throat.
Marshall used to be well known for stopping mid-concert. She even cancelled a part of her tour earlier this year due to personal reasons. But on Monday night, she seemed to be truly enjoying herself, at least for the first part of the concert.
After a few other songs from her last album, the band left the stage. She performed some of her older songs, including the beautiful "I Don't Blame You." She also performed several covers.
Her very personal and heart-rending version of the classic "The House of the Rising Sun" was one of the finest moments of the concert.
The crowd could feel that the presence of the band had been helping her to feel more confident. Now that she was on her own, she repeatedly made signs to the audience with her thumb down to indicate that she was not satisfied with some aspects of her performance.
The band returned and revived the flame pervading the beginning of the concert. They performed the last few songs with feeling. The heady and classy "Cross Bone Styles," from her album "Moon Pix," was followed by an incredibly zestful cover of the Rolling Stones' hit "Satisfaction." Then, they totally won over the audience with their brilliant cover of the hit single "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley, leaving a smile on everyone's face.
Marshall eventually returned for an encore. But she stopped halfway through her cover of "Hit the Road Jack" because she seemed unable to play it the way she wanted to. This abrupt end would have brought the audience down if it were not for her.
She left, but made an unexpected comeback as the roadies were already packing away and the crowd was aiming towards the exit. She personally handed out each and every flower from a bouquet she had been offered.
This concert did not go without mishap, but people in the crowd kept shouting: "We love you, Chan"
