03.12.2011 Kaki King / Megan Washington
Opener 'Washington' was Australian Megan Washington, a charming solo keyboardist-singer songwriter type. Not surprising, Megan Washington and Kaki King's live show have something in common... they like to talk. The standout banter for Washington was a story about her "Vibe-rater" or the thing in your head that discerns good vibes from bad vibes. Kaki King makes fun of her later in her set for that one. Song wise, she was entertaining enough. Proficient on the keys and decent melodies, Washington kept me entertained for the 30 or so minutes she was allotted.
The crowd for tonight's show was really mixed: The usual main street hipsters, weekend warriors, obvious lesbians and somewhat surprising, older guitar enthusiasts or the portion of the "Yale Hotel" crowd with internet (i kid, she's played the yale before). One thing I've always hated about the Biltmore was it's low stage. Kaki seems to be aware of this to as she suggested that everyone on the floor sit down, otherwise only the people in the front would be able to witness her awesomeness. Something that I've always loved about Kaki King's music is that she always finds a way to reinvent herself. Her first couple of albums were primarily solo acoustic driven instrumentals. Eventually she started releasing songs with vocals. Later albums feature her with a band and playing electric guitar. Her current tour is basically her and various non-standard-rock-show acoustics. I think she had somewhere between 5-7 different guitars that included a monstrous harp guitar (two 6 string necks, one regular other bass) and a dobro banjo hybrid (a "dojo"). It was nice that Kaki explained each guitar before using them.
I felt like was taking music class again. As mentioned before, her show has a lot of banter between songs. I thought this was probably the funniest:
Due to the dance party afterwards, Kaki chose to forgo the encore and play right through, still clocking in at about 90 mins worth of material which included "Adency" an Andrew York cover and "Because It's There", a Michael Hedges cover, the latter whom Kaki is often cited as being a major influence. Filling out her set were a few songs from her instrumental days and a lot of unreleased material. More to the point of reinventing herself, or at least trying new things, she also played a "Celtic" style song towards the end of her set. She really only sang on one song and that was the last one, "Sunnyside", off her new album. By this point her voice was pretty shot from having a cold and talking all night so technically I guess you could say her voice sounded terrible, but I sort of thought that it went well with the lyrics which was about heart break.
$20/$15
The crowd for tonight's show was really mixed: The usual main street hipsters, weekend warriors, obvious lesbians and somewhat surprising, older guitar enthusiasts or the portion of the "Yale Hotel" crowd with internet (i kid, she's played the yale before). One thing I've always hated about the Biltmore was it's low stage. Kaki seems to be aware of this to as she suggested that everyone on the floor sit down, otherwise only the people in the front would be able to witness her awesomeness. Something that I've always loved about Kaki King's music is that she always finds a way to reinvent herself. Her first couple of albums were primarily solo acoustic driven instrumentals. Eventually she started releasing songs with vocals. Later albums feature her with a band and playing electric guitar. Her current tour is basically her and various non-standard-rock-show acoustics. I think she had somewhere between 5-7 different guitars that included a monstrous harp guitar (two 6 string necks, one regular other bass) and a dobro banjo hybrid (a "dojo"). It was nice that Kaki explained each guitar before using them.
I felt like was taking music class again. As mentioned before, her show has a lot of banter between songs. I thought this was probably the funniest:
Due to the dance party afterwards, Kaki chose to forgo the encore and play right through, still clocking in at about 90 mins worth of material which included "Adency" an Andrew York cover and "Because It's There", a Michael Hedges cover, the latter whom Kaki is often cited as being a major influence. Filling out her set were a few songs from her instrumental days and a lot of unreleased material. More to the point of reinventing herself, or at least trying new things, she also played a "Celtic" style song towards the end of her set. She really only sang on one song and that was the last one, "Sunnyside", off her new album. By this point her voice was pretty shot from having a cold and talking all night so technically I guess you could say her voice sounded terrible, but I sort of thought that it went well with the lyrics which was about heart break.
$20/$15
Labels: kaki king, megan washington, vancouver, video, washington
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