Read More
|
Confirmed- this angel’s officially hit the Big Time--
Alternative country / folk singer-songwriter Angel Olsen and her distinctive voice, played to a loyal and raucous capacity crowd at Liberty Hall in Lawrence, KS, satisfying her older fans and making plenty of new, on this, her biggest headlining area show to date, in support of newest record, Big Time.
We caught her live last, just last August, in an outdoor show on the Wild Hearts Tour alongside Julien Baker and Sharon Van Etten, and were impressed but were wanting more, and even knew there were bigger things to come from the musician when we caught her in Minneapolis back in 2017.
===
The evening began with a generous fifty-minute set from Nashville singer-songwriter Erin Rae, in support of her newest solo full-length, Lighten Up (the title of which, is a not-so-subtle reminder to herself to not take things too seriously).
“I’ll start with my saddest song” she deadpanned, strumming “Mind / Heart” from the newest record. She described 2018’s “Love Like Before” as her “summer jam, my almost-mid-tempo song” to polite laughter and one of the common threads between she and the headliner, is that both records were produced by the wunderkind of the modern Laurel Canyon sound, Jonathan Wilson (with several Big Time Band members also guesting on it).
Her delicate song “Enemy” is actually about friendship and jealously, she played a new song for only the second time live, and she worked in a cover from “by my friend and your neighbor, Kevin Morby”, also mentioning she’d be touring with him and back in the area soon (KC show instantly sold out, but Apr 6 Bottleneck tix still remain).
===
To say that the crowd was anticipating Angel Olsen’s ninety-five-minute headlining set, is a massive understatement; as in addition to the locals and students, many had driven in from Kansas City and much farther parts unknown, to catch the buzzing St. Louis-born / Asheville, NC resident, in support of latest full-length, Big Time (Jagjaguwar Records) released last June.
Olsen and the half-dozen Big Time Band members dressed in smartly segmented solid colors (she in blue, her string section in red, bass player in green, etc.) against a projected forest mountain backdrop and began acoustically with the new “Dream Thing” and title track from the record.
Olsen’s songs can inspire and narrate as well as haunt, crossing lines between folk, stripped down alternative, and alt-country, with a voice that can shift from a traditional country croon, to soaring gospel-level heights, and maybe even the occasional yodel.
Like other recent dates, Olsen teases playing a song she “just wrote the night before” saying it “has serious potential”, before cheekily going into her most-recognizable song, 2016’s “Shut Up Kiss Me” that had the audience singing the chorus back at the band, followed by “another loud one”, “Give it Up” also from her previous My Woman album.
2019’s “All Mirrors” remains lush in concert, with its scene-setting keyboard and string crescendo and hollowed percussion, Olsen pleads “I want to Go Home, go back to small things” on a song from the new album, and she described the newest LP’s lead single, “All the Good Times” as “a mad one, about an ex”.
After asking “What song should we do?” (and receiving the inevitable unintelligible shouts back), 2016’s “Sister” launched by popular demand, with Olsen repeating “All my life, I thought I’d change” as the instrumentation built from a hush to a triumphant end, with the main set ending on 2019’s “Chance”.
The single-song encore was a vintage ‘70’s cover, as she’s been doing in recent times, this night being the Harry Nilsson version of the Badfinger classic, “Without You” which was an ideal showcase for Olsen’s voice to rise up to the rafters (even overcoming some mixing board fuzz) to end the night on an inspirational high point.
If there was any previous doubt, it’s more than obvious at this point, that Angel Olsen has indeed hit the Big Time; evidenced by the throng of loyal fans that crowded the front barricades and smilingly sang along to every aching song, to even the large handful waiting outside her bus afterward, for a brief hello or selfie. For Olsen, these are All the Good Times.
===
All Photos by Brandon Clasen (click on any image to enlarge and see in full)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| John C ♥ johnc@weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com |
Recent Comments