Marnie Stern has had some trouble getting her shows off the ground in previous visits. Most recently, she missed a sound check at a show at Red Palace and spent much of the show trying to get her levels in order, resorting to awkward banter as a time waster. At last night’s Black Cat show, the second to last of her current tour, the problem was somewhat less preventable.
“My voice is pretty shot,” she said about two songs in after noticeably not hitting the high notes on title track, “The Chronicles of Marnia” and This Is It…‘s “Transformer.” But while Stern can engage in some impressive caterwauling and tribal chanting, that’s not the primary reason anybody goes to her shows. The woman is a guitar virtuoso and her ability to shred like a master remained unaffected by the wear and tear of touring.
This setback also didn’t affect the crowd’s adoration of Stern. For example, when she proposed to the crowd, “What does a gentleman do in this town on his birthday?” such a gentleman in the back bellowed, “He goes to see Marnie Stern!” She laughed that recommendation off with, “We can do that.” The question was in regards to her bassist Nithin Kalvakota who was celebrated his birthday last night and she later took recommendations for strip clubs on his behalf.
However, a shot voice also meant less banter, which might have been for the best. Stern’s between-song conversation tends to vary between unapologetically direct and downright awkward, so she only got in a few shots that night. One at a crowdmember who asked her to tell her joke about the name of their opener, The Barren Girls, after saying the joke was too obvious. (Her reply: “That was my joke, dipshit.”) The other was at her drummer, Joe Wong, who was absent when she was ready to start the set. (“He’s probably pooping for the third time today.”)
Wong may not be as well-known as Stern’s previous collaborators: Zach Hill and Kid Millions, but his drumming is just as maniacal as her shredding. He wore a shit-eating grin whenever his pounding reached particularly mind boggling speeds and his face shone with childlike glee as he drummed in circles around his crash cymbals during a dramatic finish of “Hell Yes.”
Still, for the vocal setback, which actually suited her well on some of the more tribal numbers, this show was something of a triumph for Stern. While The Chronicles of Marnia showcases her skill just as much as any of her previous albums, the songs aren’t as dizzyingly complex and a show full of solely such songs just ends up feeling, well, dizzying. As such, this felt like less of an endurance contest than her previous shows. As such, when Stern completed the uphill battle against her voice, a battle that was very labored given her facial expressions, the audience was still ready for more.
