Cat Power

Manchester Academy, Manchester - 11 Jun 2008

by Pete Charles

Livewire songstress is back with a bang

"The entire 90 minutes is dream-like, the atmosphere soporific. Even as the house lights go up, Power is still there, blowing kisses and launching flowers to infatuated boys and indie girls who can only gawp through their thick horn-rimmed glasses."

Cat Power, real name Chan Marshall, has always been something of a loose cannon on the live circuit. She was unable to tour ‘The Greatest’, the album that put her on the map, as she was holed up in a psychiatric ward recovering from a mental breakdown brought on/exacerbated by alcohol abuse. The shows she did play were, at best, erratic and at worst, downright embarrassing. On the verge of emotional and professional ruin, she was one Cat that was well and truly on the last of her nine lives.

Tickets for tonight’s show at Manchester Academy’s main room are priced at £20 and there’s a discernible mood of cautious anticipation as Marshall skips onstage accompanied by new backing band The Dirty Delta Blues. Her cheeks are flush and she beams warmly at a room of wide-eyed, expectant fans. Three songs in and she shows no signs of the unpredictability of her past performances, but nor does her appeal suffer for this. As ever, she is an engaging performer, moving across the stage in a slinking fashion, (which neatly complements her moniker) pointing at random people and acting out the lyrics to her songs. The clean-cut, suited-and-booted Dirty Delta Blues accompany her bluesy numbers with finesse, but even pony-tailed and swamped in a creased baggy green shirt, you can’t take your eyes off Power.

As she’s touring her second covers album ‘Jukebox’, her stripped down, blues-flecked versions of Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ are all wheeled out. Covers are a regular feature of Marshall’s act but rather than simply reworking them in a different style for novelty’s sake alone, she chooses them carefully, and with weighty emphasis on their lyrical content, thereby turning them into her own songs. Her angst-ridden version of The Rolling Stones ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ is barely recognisable beneath her languid, yet seductive vocal. There’s a fair amount of her own stuff as well. The hushed melody of ‘Song For Bobby’, which sweeps over the Academy like a summer breeze, is a moment of sheer, spine-tingling bliss.

The entire 90 minutes is dream-like, the atmosphere soporific. Even as the house lights go up, Power is still there, blowing kisses and launching flowers to infatuated boys and indie girls who can only gawp through their thick horn-rimmed glasses. She looks genuinely flattered that her fans have kept faith with her, a faith that was rewarded tonight in spades.

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