Emily Elbert opened the night, barefoot and blond with a voice and scatty, relaxed guitar style to match Jack Johnson. Also Johnson-esque were Elbert’s lyrics. She sang of politics, fireflies, simple pleasures, and free souls. While inarguably enduring with her clear voice and fresh face, this young’un from Dallas overstayed her welcome by about 8 songs. Splice together the first song, the last two, and the several covers and it would have been a tremendous opening set. Elbert (and the two guys that joined her for a bit) drew yelps from a few friends in the audience, pleasant enough at first but becoming borderline exclusionary when dedications were made for “46” and the like. Hers is music to listen to while tubing down a Texas river or dozing in the sun in a park on a blanket. Nothing too deep or amazing, but lovely in its own uncomplicated way.
When she was a child in the 90s, Kaki King dreamed from her home in Georgia about Brit Pop bands like Blur jumping around on stage at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. Now, years later, King proves the power of dreaming big. Stepping on stage at the Paradise, solo before an impatient audience, King responses to the happy yells with “Sweet.” What happened next was just that, to both eye and ear. Tiny King sent her fingers off to pick out pointy notes, both hands moving down from above. She didn't ease into the music, beginning as if the song had been playing in her head, fingers sprinting to catch up. Band mates Matt Hankle, Yuval Semo, and Mark Price (the fourth, Dan Brantigan, was stuffed in some back room from which he contributed various percussion and vocals) crept silently on stage, shadows, careful not to distract from King’s grand opening. Their simultaneous and well-choreographed entrance generated deep, delicious stomach-rumbling sounds. King’s voice cut through the thunder, bright and light in spite of the dreamy lyrics.
Pleasantly cyclical, Hankle, Semo and Price made their exit before King, leaving her once again on stage all alone. She paused for a moment, and with a breath, sent her hands flying and clapping over her guitar, generating layers of sound through frenzied fingers: thickly urban sounds that tickle and tantalize. With one powerful swing down and across her shaking instrument the song was over, the stage lights flashed white, and King, quick to break the trance, playfully confessed: “I spent most of that song thinking about shoes.” With that, she proceeded to take off one cool French shoe, blue with little white “V”s, and displayed it proudly before a giggly crowd. Return Hankle, Semo and Price in what resembled an encore but for the fact that King had treated us to a musical interlude rather than demanding a tired tirade of stomping and clapping. King is ripe with talent and spirit, and her band mates are unassuming compliments.
Set List (which was titled “Sat 3/22 Kaki King Doug Fir” – so perhaps we got the same performance as Portland!)
01 -- Bone Chaos in the Castle -- Dreaming of Revenge
02 -- Life Being What It Is -- Dreaming of Revenge
03 -- Pull Me Out Alive -- Dreaming of Revenge
04 -- Sad American -- Dreaming of Revenge
05 -- Saving Days in a Frozen Head -- Dreaming of Revenge
06 -- So Much For So Little -- Dreaming of Revenge
07 -- Soft Shoulder -- Until We Felt Red
08 -- Yellowcake -- Until We Felt Red
09 -- Kaki 3 Song Break
10 -- Montreal -- Dreaming of Revenge
11 -- Jessica -- Until We Felt Red
12 -- 2 o'clock -- Dreaming of Revenge
13 -- You Don't Have to Be Afraid -- Until We Felt Red
14 -- Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Really Be a Bad Person? -- Dreaming of Revenge
“Encore”:
15 -- Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers -- Until We Felt Red
16 -- Do the Wrong Thing -- Legs to Make Us Longer
