Neko Case joked multiple times Thursday night that her debut on the Kent Stage was like a first date. She wasn’t sure whether it was too much to want to hold hands or if Kent was really his (or its?) real name.
Lucky for her and the crowd, though, the date seemed to go well. Case’s 95-minute concert at the 642-seat theater provided an overview of her more than two-decade solo career, with a sound that was perhaps more intimate than many in the audience had previously heard.
Case, a Vermont-based singer songwriter, has released multiple standout solo albums of rootsy, powerful and melodic songs, often using animals in her lyrics as stand-ins to relay stories about complex human emotions.
She splits her time between that and the power-pop band The New Pornographers, which is gearing up to release a new album in March. On Thursday, two members of her backing quartet, guitarist Carl Newman and drummer Joe Seiders, hailed from the latter band, and the rest of the crew was rounded out by longtime sideman/guitarist Paul Rigby and bassist/backing vocalist Nora O’Connor.
Opening with “I Wish I Was the Moon,” Case and her band set a mood for the rest of the night: spare, with often softer arrangements of many of her best-known songs. Acoustic guitars were often the axes of choice, and Seiders only used brushes to keep the backbeat.
Mostly, that worked very well. “Calling Cards,” from 2013’s The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, was a set highlight, with the band making room as Case’s singing became almost conversational. The same went for “Deep Red Bells,” “Halls of Sarah” and many others, with Case’s often-soaring vocals filling the theater as the band did its best not to impose.
The band also performed great covers of Sparks’ “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth” and The Go-Betweens’ “The Devil’s Eye.” And Case proved yet again she could have easily made a career in comedy, cracking jokes between nearly every song.
There were times, though, where it would have been nice to hear Case crank up the volume a bit. While her shows have never been bombastic, previous iterations included more dynamics than Thursday night. Two of her best songs, “People Got a Lotta Nerve” and “Man” sounded slightly neutered in their stripped-down versions, lacking the power that just a little more amplification could provide.
Only once did Case let loose just a little bit, using mallets to drum along during a noisy (for the show, anyway) breakdown in “Oh, Shadowless,” a song from last year’s compilation Wild Creatures.
The show also lacked some of the harmonies that can make her concerts so entrancing. O’Connor is a great harmony partner and elevated any song she sang on, but was sorely underused.
Those were minor quibbles, though, in what was a strong overview of one of the best songwriters in modern music.
Let’s hope Case comes back for a second date, er show.
Opener Indigo Sparke warmed up the crowd – which warmly received her – with just her voice and an electric guitar. Her 45-minute set featured material from last year’s sophomore record Hysteria, with songs that were intense, sweeping and soothing – often at the same time.
Eric Heisig is a freelance writer in Cleveland. He can be reached at eheisig@gmail.com.
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This article appears in Jan 25 – Feb 7, 2023.