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Waxahatchee Reassure Webster Hall Crowd with Stellar Music

Waxahatchee – Webster Hall – October 11, 2021

One could argue that March 2020 was bad timing to drop an album. It was the month Waxahatchee’s fifth full-length, Saint Cloud—which many would argue is the group’s best—was released. But with so little of anything else of value coming out in those early pandemic days (remember Tiger King?), the album was the perfect salve for scary times. For the band, it marked a turning point for Katie Crutchfield’s songwriting, now filled with warmth, tenderness and optimism as her ear turned toward the country sounds of the American South. For similar reasons, the fall of 2021 is the perfect time to tour in support of an album, signifying for many an official “return to concerts” and the (please be true) beginning of the end of living life under COVID-19.

“We’ll make up for lost time tonight,” Crutchfield told the audience at Webster Hall on Monday. The stage was overflowing with roses like the truck bed on the Saint Cloud album cover, the frontwoman donning a flowing pink prairie dress and walking the stage barefoot with her acoustic guitar. Repeated lines of “Will you go,” from “Chapel of Pines,” hung in a near silent venue filled with reverent ears. The punchier “Can’t Do Much” cut through the quiet with barnstorming twang, and Crutchfield’s lyrics pierced through with the soft refrains of “I want you/ All the time.”

There’s a marked shift in sound from Crutchfield’s songwriting from Out in the Storm to Saint Cloud, one that puts a spotlight on just how extraordinary her singing voice is. Credit is due to any songwriter who writes such difficult songs to sing, and even more to one who sings them back-to-back on the road. For this tour, Waxahatchee subsumed the Detroit four-piece Bonny Doon, adding real heft to their live sound and dual harmonies on the lyrics. A gorgeous cover of Gillian Welch’s “Wrecking Ball” had them firing on all cylinders, paying their musical dues to the country-music icon.

“When I lived here, I actually worked at a coffee shop not far from here,” remarked Crutchfield, recalling how she used to put on her debut LP, American Weekend, before it was even released. “I would play that album and would just … observe people listening to it.” Waxahatchee then performed “Noccalula,” a fleshed-out full-band version of the early bedroom recording. But the show felt much more like a coronation of Saint Cloud now that it’s had time to work its way into our hearts and the fans know lyrics well, which made for a special moment at the set finale, with hundreds of masked voices singing along to “Fire” in full force. Crutchfield returned for a three-song encore, ending with Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” dedicated to everyone in the room. With Crutchfield’s reassuring voice singing, “Everything's gonna be all right/ It’s gonna be OK.” —Dan Rickershauser | @D4nricks

(Waxahatchee play Union Transfer in Philly on Friday and 10/19.)

(Waxahatchee play the Royale in Boston on Saturday.)

Photos courtesy of Toby Tenenbaum | photobytenenbaum.com

Lennox, sir! Is it strange to interact with beings so much larger than you?

“Well… Yeah.” He laughs, “I mean, it’s strange enough interacting with robots from space, but them being so big is kind of unnerving. You spent half the time making sure they know where you are and that they aren’t going to step on you. But once you’ve got the knack of it, they’re almost like working with enormous sentient animals. Or a bipedal tank that has a mind of its own. The tank is probably the better analogy. The guy that biggest ‘con stepped on had the same kind of injuries to being run over by one…” Lennox shudders.

#bill lennox

Some works, mainly those written primarily for political protest, he once said were not really "poems" and he reads them only on request. A school student once requested 'Making a Fist of It'. It's not a poem he chooses to read (although he does the Afrikaans voice with scary conviction) and he couldn't find the page. The student offered her crumpled and annotated copy of 'Mihi'. Hone studied it. "Looks like a race book... notes all over it... corrections are they?"

Bill Lennox, on poet Hone Tuwhare.

#hone tuwhare #poetry #new zealand #writing #bill lennox