In an effort to be everywhere at once, we’re going to be introducing a lot of new correspondants for Almack’s in the coming weeks. Introducing Christine Paolino! Here is her review of Kate Nash’s Webster Hall show: 

[more after the jump]

My friend Lana, who had recently come back from studying abroad in London, was bugging me about listening to this female singer named Kate Nash. For months, she kept telling me how great she was and that I should listen to her music. I was ignorant and lazy, so I resisted. But many months after I saw her music video for “Pumpkin Soup” and automatically fell in love. I let my friend know that I had seen the light and we decided to buy tickets for her concert.
 
We arrived late to the show, so we only caught the end of the opening act, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and they seemed to be an actual family, dad, mom and daughter on drums. They sang songs about mountains and other things in nature and showed photos of said mountains. It was pretty odd, to say the least.
 
Before entering the show I spoke to the bouncer checking IDs, (it was an 18+ show), and he mentioned how Ms. Nash was a half-hour late to come onstage the night before. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait long and she didn’t disappoint, she was right on time tonight! At 9:15pm, the lights went down and the pink neon sign on stage with, “Kate Nash” on it, shone brightly as the song “Stop! In The Name Of Love” by The Supremes played.
 
Kate sat down at her piano and opened the show with the most upbeat and one of my favorite songs on the album, “Pumpkin Soup”. Her live version of this song was more rock infused and sped up, rather than the R&B/Pop version on the album. Kate has a great stage presence and seems to belong on the stage. The audience a mixture of all ages, was very enthusiastic and seemed to recognize almost every song by the opening bars being played. Kate exhibited a great interaction with the crowd, telling stories about the callouses on her fingers she uses to play guitar, which only used to be blisters and how she met Whoopi Goldberg and listed her favorite of Goldberg’s movies, (”Sister Act”, “Sister Act 2″, and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”).
 
She soon launched into a segment of the show she called, “quiet songs”, which consisted of “Birds”, “The Nicest Thing”, and “Seagulls”. These “quiet songs” which are great on the album, (”Made of Bricks”), were even more amazing live and my favorite part of the show. During “The Nicest Thing”, the large disco ball was lowered down and the show became a more sophisticated version of an eighth grade dance, (with better music). There was some chatter overheard from the crowd during these “quiet songs”, most notably before Kate began to sing “Seagulls”, Kate responded by telling the crowd to shut up and they actually listened! The crowd adored Kate and we even launched into a “Paul you suck!” chant, started by Ms. Nash in reference to her song, “Dickhead”. Kate played 17 songs in total and ended the night with a crowd favorite, “Merry Happy”.
 
Setlist:
“Pumpkin Soup”
“Shit Song”
“Stitching Leggings”
“We Get On”
“Birds”
“The Nicest Thing”
“Seagulls”
“Dickhead”
“Pick Pocket”
“Do Wha Do”
“Paris”
“Skeleton Song”
“Mariella”
“Mouthwash”
“Foundations”
 
Encore
“Don’t You Want To Share The Guilt?”
“Moral Behavior”
“Merry Happy”
 

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Live Shows, Webster Hall. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.