Austinist Concert Review: Cat Power at Stubb's

It’s a hell of a statement about your reputation when people, upon finding out that you performed, want to know exactly how you publicly freaked out this time. And it’s a hell of a statement that those people are shocked when they find out that you didn’t, in fact, freak out or cry or scream on stage. But so it is when you’re Chan Marshall, and so it was when she performed a breakdown-free show this Saturday at Stubb’s.

Ably supported by her solid if unspectacular backing band, including a crowd-pleasingly chain-smoking keyboardist and an afro’d drummer, Marshall made up for the cancellation of her April show in fine fashion, employing breathy renditions of a number of her most popular songs to please an enthusiastic though intermittently restless crowd. While Marshall was prone to her usual obsession with the sound levels in her monitors, she played the show pretty close to the vest, with minimal audience interaction detracting from an otherwise fine performance.

Using some unanticipated electronic flourishes to bring freshness to a slew of covers and original songs, the set started a bit slowly but picked up after halftime, a halftime which featured a somewhat-incomprehensible rendition of “This Little Light of Mine” where Marshall wasn’t on stage at all. But the second half amped up the energy nicely, and benefited from an increase in the lighting, which was a bit low early in the presentation. By the end of the act, the crowd—which was most thrilled by “The Greatest” and “Ramblin’ (Wo)Man”—was satisfied, even if some seemed a little disappointed they didn’t get that patented Cat Power emotional breakdown.