Hanging on Her Every Word

Tift Merritt / Hotel Lights Cat's Cradle, Carrboro NC February 19, 2005 Ok, the third and final live show in the "Best of 2004" series... at least so far, that is. Only live show I have nailed down coming up is the Ash / The Bravery show in March. Might go see the Rosebuds that same weekend, too... But I digress. My (wonderful) wife and I were both excited about this show as we both really like Tift Merritt's albums. She provides us a nice middle ground on which to meet. Plus, I was excited about the opening band as Hotel Lights is Darren Jesse's new band. Darren, as the astute popsters in the crowd know, was the drummer in Ben Folds Five. He's pulled a "Dave Grohl" and is playing guitar, keys, and singing lead vocals in his new band. So, with all this excitement, you can imagine my disappointment when we had made it over halfway to Carrboro and realized we'd forgotten the tickets. Grrrrrrrrrr. It's like a disease we have. Would you believe we had tickets to the Continental Tire Bowl a few years back when my Virginia was playing and left the damn tickets on the refrigerator? Unbelievable, I know. Luckily, this time we had purchased the tickets online at etix.com... Mix that with a little quick thinking and you're scanning your brain thinking of where in the world the closest Kinko's is (excuse me...make that FedExKinko's). I knew where one was nearby, but of course hit every single traffic light getting to it and got there 5 minutes after it closed. Luckily, Chapel Hill is a college town so we found a Kinko's there and $2.25 later had reprinted the tickets. Which means we weren't too terribly late to the show. Got to see the last few Hotel Lights songs. From what I could tell, they were lulling the crowd to sleep. Their music is very peaceful, *very* mellow. I thought that maybe live they'd turn it up a bit, but no... they were happy to make it a sleepy affair. Unfortunately, I just think it was the wrong crowd to truly appreciate it and to tell you the truth, I don't think I was in the right mood or mindset to enjoy it either. I did pick up their self-released debut and I'll be reviewing it soon. Fortunately, Tift Merritt was easily able to turn things around for the crowd. The middle-ground I mentioned earlier apparently applies to others as well as the crowd was extremely diverse. From the young college-age kids (man, I'm getting old) to folks who could have been my parents and even grandparents were in attendance and seemed to be very aware of her music. There were the hipsters, the not-so-hipsters, the I-don't-even-know-what-a-hipster-is-ers, and the nerds, like me. But, everyone in attendance seemed to be totally entranced by this woman. In between some of the songs there was a weird silence after the applause and shouting subsided... Tift joked about it saying we were so well-behaved but eventually someone shouted out "We're hanging on your every word!" which I think was completely the case. No one wanted to miss a thing she said. It was very different than any other show I'd been to. There is really something special about her and people are just drawn to her... Maybe it's her sheer talent, maybe it's her songwriting, maybe it's her sweet beauty, maybe it's what comes across as the most intense kindness, maybe it's her innocence... who knows? Whatever it is, it works. Throughout the main set of her show, she was fantastic. Her vocals were tight, even though she was having serious monitor problems early on and couldn't hear herself at all. Her band was perfect for her. The backing vocals were spot on. The keyboards were rockin'... and so on and so on. Had the crowd dancing and singing along. But, all that said, Tift really nailed in the fact that she is a special talent during her encore set. She came out with just her acoustic guitar and let us into an intimacy that I hadn't experienced for a while at a live show. What a voice, what a spirit. I love it when a performer validates praise live. Tift definitely did that. I obviously recommend checking her out if you get a chance. See if the crowd is set into the same trance where you are. Perhaps it was all because this is her howetown, but I'm guessing it's because she really has what it takes.