Review by Valerie Paschall
Within thirty seconds of taking the 9:30 Club stage, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield held the crowd hostage with the highly expressive nature of her face and her voice. Both yearning and vulnerability during opening song “La Loose,” and the fact that she was alone onstage added gravity to lyrics like “know that I feel more than you do / I selfishly want you here to stick to.” Later, when joined by her band for “The Dirt,” her visible (and audible) snarl highlighted a fearless intensity. But the most unexpected emotion Crutchfield displayed was that of shock. She genuinely didn’t expect the loud cheers after saying, “We’re Waxahatchee. We’re from Philadelphia.”
“Wow, you guys really cheered for Philly,” she said incredulously. “You like Philly?”
It’s a fair enough question. D.C. definitely emits something of a sibling rivalry (or sibling condescension?) toward the City of Brotherly Love. Then there’s the matter of those pesky sports rivalries—one of which was in full force last week. But clearly, love for a band’s music can trump sports team loyalty as D.C. also packed the 9:30 Club to see these two Philly-based bands. This was one of those sold out shows where elbow room was at a premium and dancing meant brushing hands with a new best friend. It was also one of those sold out shows that more than delivered on its promise.
Like his opener, Kurt Vile also has an incredible sonic and emotional range, but seeking it in his voice and face would be a pointless endeavor. Part of having the best hair in rock and roll means that his face is nearly invisible behind it. Moreover, his mumbly Philly drawl is recognizably flat, and when he does talk between songs, it’s in reverb-washed yips (which the audience repeatedly tried to imitate) and short, clipped sentences.
Instead, Vile let his guitar do most of the talking and boy, did it have a lot to say. Vile covers a lot of ground on this year’s impressive release, b’lieve i’m goin down… and since most of the set was culled from that album, the crowd got to feel a different mood from song to song. He opened with the upbeat “Dust Bunnies,” where he didn’t so much press his effects pedals as kick them in fits of intensity. Meanwhile, during songs like “Wheelhouse,” the guitars sounded far more orchestral and produced a sense of gravity. He returned to the finger picking style for which he became known on the song “That’s Life tho, (almost hate to say).” He has long displayed the sort of finger picking that would sound more at home on a banjo and in fact, Vile pulled out a banjo for “Outlaw.” He went from playful to a low warning to soothing within the course of 15 minutes.
As great as it was to hear the interpretations of these new songs for the first time in a live setting, some of the set’s biggest highlights came as Vile reached further back into his catalog. The ten minute “Goldtone” from 2013’s Wakin’ On a Pretty Daze had a hypnotic effect on the crowd as they bobbed along intently with the pretty cacophony of his backing band, The Violators. Then the tempo slowed and the sound decreased to one acoustic and one electric guitar for the haunting “He’s Alright,” a standout from 2009’s Childish Prodigy that can elicit tears from the most stoic of rock fans. That album’s other stand out, “Freak Train,” allowed Vile and company to let them show their most grit. Vile abused an effects pedal (and his vocal cords) as a saxophone added extra depth to the night’s most thunderous song.
Meanwhile, the thunder came to the set for Waxahatchee as soon as Katie’s twin sister Allison [of ripping rock band Swearin’] took the stage. Her guitar tuning and confidence add a grit to Katie’s songs even though their voices sound nearly identical when the harmonies kick in. Katie is more than capable of creating a racket, as proven during the breakdown of “Less Than” where she was also ably assisted by her drummer. However, the most telling moment of the Waxahatchee set was when they chose to cover Lucinda Williams’ “I Lost It.” Much like Williams, Katie Crutchfield has the ability to take the emotional weight of difficult love and life experiences and translate them into easily hummable tunes. She comes from more of a punk background but clearly carries the torch of touching yet tough songwriting.
