Kathleen Edwards

Luke Doucet

Silverlake Lounge - February 23, 2006

Live Review by Adam McKibbin

Kathleen Edwards is a little rougher around the edges than many of her alt-country peers.  The special press package for her debut album included a miniature bottle of Maker’s Mark, and her songs are filled with beautifully rendered glimpses into true-to-life small town stories, fuckups and burnouts intact (a myopic reviewer is tempted here to describe them as small town America stories, but Edwards is, in fact, Canadian).  We see the ex-lover sent off to jail, and the young mistress dancing dirty for an older married man.  Her two albums are the stuff of broken dreams and empty bottles, relationships gone south and, worse, relationships gone static.

And yet Edwards is still relatively pop-friendly, especially on Lilith Fair-y type tracks like “Lone Wolf.”  Her labelmates have included Sarah Harmer and Martha Wainwright.  So on a trip through Los Angeles, a typical venue would be The Knitting Factory or Largo—and, indeed, she did play the latter.  But she also played Silverlake Lounge, a safely seedy venue that often caters to louder rock shows and/or local upstarts.  The reason?  She’d seen a show there during a previous tour and decided it was her kind of place.

While she was happy to be there, and expressed her gratitude for the packed house, it really isn’t the ideal venue.  It’s an intimate space, but rather narrow, and without the movement afforded by faster shows, shorter audience members get stuck craning necks and standing on tiptoes to try to see the stage.  Worse, during an especially personal, acoustic song, Edwards was forced to battle with what sounded like a dishwasher roaring up behind the very-nearby bar.

The distractions were a pity, because Edwards turned in a strong set, cursing her way through some tuning difficulties and playing a generous selection of tracks from Back to Me and Failer.  There’s already a wide range of material there; highlights from the latest album [Back to Me] included the quiet, achingly bittersweet “Old Time Sake” and the driving rock-twang of “What Are You Waiting For?”  The compelling huskiness of her vocals—at times akin to a younger Lucinda Williams, occasionally even like a female Neil Young—apparently rely on absolutely zero studio trickery; she sounds just as great in person.  With any luck, she’ll be with us for decades to come.

Edwards can be somewhat insular as a performer; during the instrumental interludes, it’s almost like a theatrical fourth wall has been erected, as she would often just lose herself in lovebirdy eye-locks with lone bandmate (and husband) Colin Cripps.  That cozy domesticity stands in sharp contrast to the seething, lustful, lonesome world of the songs—frankly, the latter is much more interesting for an audience than the former.

Cozy domesticity also doesn’t have much place in the song catalog of opener Luke Doucet, whose newest album, Broken (and Other Rogue States), is almost entirely an ode to true love left on the wayside.  His pleasantly expressive voice, mixed with a sense of humor and self-awareness, ensured that the material never got too maudlin—if anything, the awkwardly drawn-out introductions were more off-putting than the songs themselves.

As sensitive singer/songwriter fare, Doucet’s work is improved in the translation to live performance; newcomers would probably be more apt to be stopped by the live show than the record.  “Broken One”—which comes off as a tad cutesy on disc—feels more grounded on stage, and it turns into a winning (if still bitter) kiss-off.

Another reason for the live success was the superb support given by Doucet’s bandmate, who possessed quite a powerful set of pipes.  A concertgoer later reported that she was “surrounded by suits” afterwards, and even if this wasn’t the case, it certainly could have been (technically, Doucet seemed to be the only actual suit in the room—and he looked pretty dapper).  Like Edwards and Cripps, they shared an intimate rapport, but it wasn’t at the expense of the audience—if anything, Doucet seemed intent on giving the audience as much access as possible.