Last night was a whirlwind of music.

 

My friend Steven scored some tickets to see Cat Power at the Vic. I’m glad mine was free. Actually, the music was dynamite. Once it got started.

 

For those of you who don’t know much about Cat Power, she’s notorious for her inconsistent concerts: occasionally failing to show up, starting late, ending the show mid-song, or doing weird stuff onstage. But her fans give her wide leeway because she’s a “brilliant” and “sensitive artist” who possesses a “fragile ego.”

 

It’s true: when she sang, she had a quality that was like Bjork crossed with Janis Jopin. Fascinating, magnetic, everything they say she is.

 

But the show started 45 minutes late. Then, when it did start, the band led off with two long instrumentals, without her even on stage. Her touring band is a ten-piece Memphis soul band: horns, Hammond organ, rock solid rhythm, and two backup singers. Smokin’ solid, professional.

 

One of the backup singers announced her, “Let’s hear it for Cat Power!” She came out, wandered around for awhile, the band kept repeating the intro to the song. So again: “Let’s hear it for Cat Power!” She gave her cigarette to someone in the audience, then she sang about two words into the microphone, and then did a “time out” with her hands, and the band stopped. She attempted, unsuccessfully, to get her cigarette back from the audience member. The members of the band looked around at one another. So, once again: “Let’s hear it for Cat Power!” The backup singer whipped the band into action, shot Cat a look that said “All right Ms. Power, it’s time to sing. NOW.” And Cat finally made it through the song all the way through. She acquitted herself, at least musically.

 

The rest of the show was a bit more normal, although you kept thinking that she might be on the verge of having a “Barbara Jean” moment. (In Robert Altman’s “Nashville” there’s a country singer named Barbara Jean who has a breakdown onstage during a song. She begins a rambling monologue and then can’t stop talking. Eventually she has to be pulled off the stage).

 

The end of the show was best: just Cat onstage, with her guitar or the piano, doing far out, freeform adaptations of “Wild Is The Wind” and “House of the Rising Sun.”

 

We left the show before it was completely over in order to hightail it over to the Metro to see the concert we’d actually gotten together to see in the first place: Nouvelle Vague.

 

The show was awesome. Steven, who had never seen them before or even heard them very much, described it as “the best possible karaoke show.” Two French chanteuses, a girl with an accordion, and an extremely talented group consisting of drums, bass, guitar. Playing New Wave covers. As with last year’s show, their renditions of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” “Too Drunk to Fuck,” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” brought the house down. New additions: “Heart of Glass,” “Sweet Tender Hooligan” and “Mexican Radio” (!) The way they played the songs, it was like hearing something totally new. Noticing the lyrics, and the melody, the chord changes. The crowd was very much into the show. Awfully gay crowd too.  

 

I’ve packed a lot into the past seven days. It’s been great. But tonight I am looking forward to going home after work and doing laundry.