A new venue for me tonight in the heart of Dalston. Despite Transport for London’s best efforts to stop us getting there with no trains we ventured on the bus from Highbury down the road. Meaning no disrespect to the area Dalston is not benefitting from the gentrification that is engulfing neighbouring Hackney at the moment.
We are upstairs in the mid-sized theatre which does not have seats but instead wide wooden steps essentially. As feared these proved to be highly uncomfortable with no room to change your sitting position and no support so it did cause a strain on the back for this ageing body. So my uncomfortableness of the body was matched by the uncomfortableness on the wallet where they are flogging beer at nearly £7 a can. Sadly the no draft beer policy means that throughout the support and main set you are greeted with the sounds of can popping which doesn’t help the mood of these acoustic shows.
Gripes over and onto the show. It’s been three years since Katie Crutchfield aka Waxahatchee released the excellent ‘St Could’ albumand five years since she has been over here but in the interim we were treated to the excellent Plains album last year, her collab with the equally excellent Jess Williamson. We were treated to a few from that album tonight along with some oldies, newbies and selected covers over the course of an hour or so.
It’s a massive stage that dwarves Katie armed with just an acoustic guitar, stool, two monitors and microphone stand. But thanks to excellent sound this minimal setup fills the entire space perfectly and I don’t know whether it was a pedal or the quality of the guitar but it produced a lovely mellow, warm, honey glazed sound. Coupled with that phenomenal voice it was a perfect show of an artist at the top of their game.
It’s a cliché but on a night of many highlights it’s tricky to pick one or two out but here goes ‘Problem with it’, new song ‘Crowbar’ and set closer ‘St Could’ were excellent
A great albeit physically uncomfortable night of purest acoustic folkin’ y’all