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Kate Nash at Richard's on Richards on Thursday, May 8
The world being a judgmental cesspool, one of the unfortunate realities of life is that plain girls have to try a little harder. Based on a Thursday night Dick's on Dicks show where she put out far more energy than she got back from a capacity crowd, Kate Nash understands that.
The hourlong set proved that the auburn-haired, 20-year-old Londoner doesn't lack charisma—a good thing, considering she looks like she should be toiling in Accounting in the U.K. version of The Office. Refreshingly, from the very visible blemishes on her face to a clothing ensemble that screamed Topshop, Nash looked like anything but a prefabbed pop star. Instead, she's an Everyday Jane you'd be delighted to have a Boddingtons with at the pub.
Unassuming as she was, Nash meant business, as did her four backing musicians, including an impressively hard-hitting riot nerrrd on drums and a Kid Congo Powers look-alike on guitar and pedal steel.
Things started with a wallop. Nash plunked herself down at a keyboard, ignored shouts of “You're sexy” from a clearly randy audience member, and then pile-drived right into “Pumpkin Soup” off her debut, Made of Bricks. On record, the number is breezy neo-soul buoyed by Soul Train horn flourishes. Live, it was a different animal: as drummer Elliot Andrews kicked the crap out of his kit and guitarist Jay Malhotra oozed Slash-brand rock 'n' roll cool, Nash reconfigured the song as a sonic cannonball. By the end, she was alternately howling like Courtney Love caught in a leg-hold trap and growling like those beyond-the-grave things from The Grudge, all the while giving a clinic on bombastic indie-boogie on the keys.
“Pumpkin Soup” should have been the spark that ignited the powder keg. Instead, the audience stood there motionless like it was teatime at Lilith Fair. That worked fine during the slow portion of the show, where Nash asked for quiet. Her wish was the crowd's command when she swapped the keyboards for an acoustic guitar during a campfire version of “We Get On”.
Save for a Richard's dry-ice machine that inexplicably belched out fog every 16 seconds, the mood was equally reverential when Nash picked up the electric guitar for “Birds”, which was like Cat Power during the Moon Pix years, only 98 percent less crazy.
Nash has some great strengths. One is her ability to write hurting songs that everyday punters can relate to. A piano-powered “Foundations” boiled a crumbling relationship down to ugly basics with lines like “Then you'll call me a bitch/And everyone we're with will be embarrassed.”
Another of her gifts is to stubbornly give 'er, even when she's not getting anything back. During the all-hands-on-deck freak-out that was “Don't You Want to Share the Guilt?”, Nash was a flame-haired fireball, practically shrieking the song's spoken-word latter half, which chronicles her shortcomings, absolute loves, and a long list of things she wants to do.
She may look like every other girl on the Tube, but for five minutes no one took their eyes off her. As the song crashed to an end, Nash got a reception suggesting that, for some audience members at least, the Sominex was finally wearing off. Consider that proof that, occasionally, you'll be rewarded for trying harder.
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