Rosanne Cash – Strathmore, 9/22/2024

Orchestra Center, Row H, Seat 101 – 8 rows from the front, on the center-right aisle. Sightlines and sound were both excellent.

 

This was the third time I’ve seen Rosanne Cash at the Strathmore Music Center, but the experience never gets old. (She doesn’t appear to age much either.) This time I had a sneak peek, as the night before she closed out Saturday night of #XPNFest, the annual three-day music festival that WXPN conducts (and broadcasts) from Camden NJ, right across the river from Philadelphia. The setlists and patter were fairly similar, although the Strathmore show was significantly longer.

 

She reached back near the end of her show for 3 of the 11 (!) country-chart-topping songs from her 1980s commercial heyday (two of which she wrote), but most of her performance consisted of original material from her post-80s albums. She did, however, throw in a song from hubby John Leventhal’s new album, an expressive duet with Leventhal on the classic “Ode To Billie Joe”, Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina” as the encore, and two tracks from 2009’s The List, her record with a dozen of the 100 “greatest country songs” listing that her father had prepared for her. (She teased her husband on “Sea Of Heartbreak”, saying that he’d have to fill in for Bruce Springsteen as a duet partner, and referring to him semi-seriously as “The Boss” at the end.)

 

This year she’s been spotlighting The Wheel, the 1993 album which she remastered and re-released earlier this year once the rights to the recordings reverted to her. The group performed three tracks from it during the first half of the show, including a lovely acoustic take on “Tears Falling Down” and a driving version of the title track, which was one of the high points of the show, along with “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For” (one of my personal favorites) and “She Remembers Everything”.

 

The five-piece band was excellent, with Leventhal on acoustic and electric guitar throughout and Kevin Barry providing additional guitar work, including lap steel on several numbers. It also included Sam Katz on bass, Dan Rieser on drums, and Misty Boyce on keyboards (apologies for any misspellings).

 

Cash also revealed that she was going to be among the speakers at Tuesday’s unveiling of her father’s new statue in the U.S. Capitol, joining the one of civil rights leader Daisy Bates to represent the state of Arkansas.

 

The crowd was attentive and enthusiastic throughout. I didn’t see a single person going in or out until the end of the show (unlike some recent experiences at Wolf Trap).

 

Setlist

Indigo Girls / Melissa Etheridge – Wolf Trap, 8/24/2024

This was both an interesting and a satisfying evening, especially since it consisted of one act that I had seen on several previous occasions, paired with another that I was seeing for the first time. Each did a set that was precisely 90 minutes long.

 

The Indigo Girls opened – I suspect they switch off from night to night – with six other musicians accompanying them on stage (including Lucy Wainwright Roche, who contributed a lovely solo performance of “Soft Line” about halfway through). The classic “Shame On You” started things off, followed by “Power Of Two”, which is one of my personal favorites. I was familiar with most of the material, although I had forgotten “I’ll Change” and had never heard “Joy Train”, which is from one of Amy Ray’s solo albums. “Least Complicated” was a crowd favorite mid-set, but things peaked at the end, with the final threesome of “Galileo”, “Kid Fears”, and the obligatory “Closer To Fine”, with Etheridge joining them for the last two.

 

Melissa Etheridge featured only three other musicians (bass, drums, and keyboards/guitar), but they produced plenty of powerful (and loud) tunes, opening with “Must Be Crazy For Me”. Two songs later, Amy and Emily joined them on stage for the simmering “You Can Sleep While I Drive”. One of the highlights for me came when she sat down at the piano for the great slow ballad “Nowhere To Go”. Although both of tonight’s acts like to mix up their setlists from show to show, the final four in Melissa’s recent shows have been almost completely consistent, alternating mid-tempo songs with extended rockers, ending with “Like The Way I Do” from her debut album, which included her spending a little time on the drums.

 

The weather was absolutely perfect. The pre-show traffic was not – very slow from halfway up the I-270 spur well into Virginia. Oddly enough, given that the show was sold out, I got out of the (no longer full) parking lot much quicker than usual about 15 minutes after Melissa Etheridge finished her set. Did some folks come just for the Indigo Girls and leave early?

 

Indigo Girls setlist

Melissa Etheridge setlist

Fantastic Cat – The Hamilton Live, 8/14/2024

Sat in front (“Gold”) section, at a table somewhat to the left of center.

 

Fantastic Cat definitely lived up to its adjective during an energetic 95-minute set in front of an appreciative crowd.

 

Their 20 songs included 17 of the tracks from their two studio albums, which made me feel a little bad for the 4 that were left out. They also performed a heartfelt version of Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me In Your Heart” about halfway in, did “Goodnight My Darling” (from a long-out-of-print live vinyl EP) to conclude their main set, and encored with a rousing cover of “Band On The Run”. It’s hard to pick favorites from such an outstanding litter, but I’d go with “The Gig” (which opened the set), “Go All Night” (F-bombs and all), and “Sometimes Your Heroes Let You Down”.

 

The band’s self-deprecating sense of humor – their album covers portray them as actual felines, and both their liner notes and web site are heavily tongue-in-cheek – was also evident throughout the evening. They’re not totally modest, however, as they brought along a live digital clock that counts down (to the second) the time until the band is eligible for nomination to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Setlist

 

Singer-songwriter Matt Sucich opened the evening with a 6-song half-hour set, joined by Brian Dunne of Fantastic Cat on “Holy Smokes!”.