Waxahatchee live review: a gifted songwriter at the peak of her powers
It’s not too great a stretch of the imagination to picture an alternate universe where Katie Crutchfield’s Americana project is as big a deal as Taylor Swift.
It’s not too great a stretch of the imagination to picture an alternate universe where Katie Crutchfield’s Waxahatchee is as big a deal as Taylor Swift.
If we’re talking pure songcraft, the much-fawned-over crown jewel of Swift’s entire career is All Too Well — a compact epic about longing, regret, and resolve. Crutchfield, meanwhile, churns out dozens of equally transcendent All Too Wells with each album.
But we don’t live in a world where songwriting talent dictates fame. And while both artists are masters of melody and rich storytellers who share a knack for making the personal universal, their careers couldn’t be more opposite. Swift is the polished product of the Big Nashville Country Star machine, whereas Crutchfield’s beginnings are scrappier — her music darker, rawer, and all the more compelling for it. And so, this daft thought experiment ends here.
Crutchfield started making music as a teen in Birmingham, Alabama’s D.I.Y. punk scene. First came the bubbly, hook-laden punk of The Ackleys, then the more introspective, lo-fi offerings of P.S. Eliot, both bands she formed with her twin sister Allison.
In 2012, she released American Weekend, her debut solo album — a collection of piercing and spiralling scumbag anthems written from rock bottom after a week-long bender. It topped end-of-year lists on every music blog worth its salt and introduced her as one of indie’s most arresting voices.
On Monday night at the Sydney Opera House, Crutchfield, backed by a four-piece band, ascended the stage in a red velvet mini dress with enormous sleeves, cracked silver Margiela tabi boots, and a Kansas City trucker cap (which she later launched in the crowd), to play her first show in the city in six years.
A lot has happened in between this show and her last. In 2020, deep in the throes of the pandemic, a freshly sober Crutchfield released Saint Cloud, the album that took her from cult secret to, well — not quite mainstream, but close enough to the surface. Gone was the punk scuzz of her early work; Saint Cloud embraced the drowsy, dusty Americana music of her childhood, filtered through a lens of new-found clarity.
She followed it with Tigers Blood, one of this year’s finest albums — another record that luxuriates in the thick Southern air, filled with lived-in songs that feel like they have been around for a lifetime. It was this warm, enveloping feeling that washed over the crowd on Monday night.
This was not a show that relied on any production trickery to coax emotions out of you. The lighting was weak and dodgy and there were no lovely distracting projections. But it didn’t matter, it just made it easier to get lost in the songs — all which sounded lush, muscular and expansive.
Crutchfield and co. run a tight ship and could hold their own against the best live bands. The pedal steel, played by Colin Croom (who also manned the guitar, harmonica, keys, and backing vocals) was the evening’s secret weapon, weaving the set with plaintive cries, filling every corner of the Concert Hall with a sound that felt like it belonged outdoors, some place sprawling and endless.
There were no “raucous” moments or obvious peaks. The set opened with a near-a capella version of ‘3 Sisters’, which saw Crutchfield stretch and contort her voice while drummer Spencer Tweedy (son of Wilco’s Jeff) built tension with ghostly, near-imperceptible strums for six verses until the chorus and full band kicked in. Once that happened, the texture and pacing didn’t vary much, rather, it settled comfortably.
The band closed the night with ‘Fire,’ the centrepiece of Saint Cloud, one of Crutchfield’s remarkable lyrical feats.
“Tomorrow could feel like a hundred years later/ I’m wiser and slow and attuned/And I am down on my knees, I’m a bird in the trees/I can learn to see with a partial view,” she sung, as the audience shed a few silent tears.
A friend put it best in a post-show text he sent: “A beautiful reminder that sometimes C, F, G, a sense of perspective and an all star cast is all it takes.”
Waxahatchee will play The Forum, Melbourne on December 5, Odeon Theatre, Hobart on December 8 and Meredith Festival, Victoria on December 6.