“My dad called me up and exclaimed ‘girl power!’ after her heard this one off the new record,” explained Michaela Anne before launching into the uptempo country swinger “Liquor Up” last evening at Cambridge’s Lizard Lounge. Girl Power could have been the theme for last night’s show despite 1/3 of the bill being, well a dude and the Nashville based songwriter’s band being an ace crew of male musicians. The evening spanned the breadth of the beauty and intimacy of a single female voice to the harmoniously captivating layers of two singing together to the unbridled passionate fervor that a broken heart and a penchant to rhyme about it over a wailing pedal steel and more has to offer. To say the audience was barreled over with emotion and excitement by the night’s end would be criminal in understating the talent and vigor poured over the room.
A subdued and quiet Keenan O’ Meara tuned up his classical gut stringed Gibson and an old archtop Guild as a crowd strung their way down the stairs into the Lizard’s basement room. There is something incredibly comforting about this room. It feels more like gathering with friends (even those you don’t kn0w) to take in the music of another friend, close up and in the action. Hearing every creak of the venues old chairs and breath from the artists mere feet from your own face. I pick up hints Jeff Buckley in the emotional swooping of his voice over echoing guitar lines, far more complicated and jazz influenced than the singer-songwriter lets on as he effortlessly contorts his hands into positions across the frets that create a beautiful canvas of dissonance and harmony, complex but gorgeous as his voice lilts its way over the top of it. The music is soft and delicate, drawing you into the deep chambers and recesses of O’Meara’s songs.
From the very first iteration of the Beekeepers in their early days at Berklee, Annie Lynch has been a personal favorite. Her songs just float. Her voice stretches to the borders of all human emotion and she manages to capture and portray the bleak experiences and heartache we experience in life in a way that is so profoundly beautiful and affecting that its almost as if you truly FEEL how she was feeling when she wrote those songs. As gifted a songwriter she is, I could sit and listen to her play covers of the worst pop garbage over and over and be completely content due to the fact that her voice alone encompasses such beauty that it would all be alright. Luckily, that wasn’t the agenda last evening. She began the set solo with an old favorite that was penned during her years in town, “Like a Dog”, but from there it was all new hat. While with most performers you want to “hear the classics” or the songs you are most familiar with, but with Annie it was different. She played a slew of primarily brand new songs, yet unrecorded and they felt like a worn old record, warm and inviting and familiar, but stories that reflected a new life for the songwriter. A favorite being “Pancakes” which her longtime friend and contemporary Catie Flynn lended her harmonies to. The anticipation for a new record from Annie only grew ten-fold after a wonderful intimate, performance last evening and luckily, it seems as though one is on the horizon with this batch of new songs.
If the fact that curse words come to mind when describing the music of an artist is any indication of how good they are, well then, Michaela Anne is abso-f*cking-lutely amazing. She walks a line. A line that stretches from the intricate and exquisite to the “punch to the gut”-raucous-natured badassery that she and the band unleashed on the crowd last evening. The songwriter completely owns the stage and the audience as she strummed and sang her way through a handful of countrified tracks from her latest release “Bright Lights and the Fame”. There is something remarkably natural about how she is on stage and in front of a crowd. Taking a moment to tell a story about the song she is about to play, a tidbit of knowledge about her story and how she got there. When an artist has such a relaxed and confident balance to how they interact with a crowd it just gives you this “ok, I am in good hands” feeling that pulls you deep into the experience with the band, and that was evident last night. The voice that comes forth from Michaela Anne’s pint sized frame could barrel down Goliath and the conviction and honesty with how she does so, well thats just something special in and of itself. You simply cannot help hanging on every word, dancing in your seat (or just dancing) and believing everything she spits your way. This was the first time in a long while that I wish the band would have played all night long. The infectious honky-tonk two stepping vibe and the honeyed slight twang of the singer’s voice dug its claws deep in my heart and I can still feel the scratches it left on me this morning.
It isn’t often you get to witness a great act in an evening of music in today’s musical landscape, never mind three brilliant and varied artists in a setting that was as close and intimate as last night. Get music from all three of these wonderful talents, immediately, your soul will thank you.