Opening Act: Simeon Ross opened for Nellie, and was actually very good. He reminded me of Dave Matthews at times, with a jazzier feel. Unfortunately, a good portion of the audience came only to hear the wunderkind, McKay, and talked loudly and continuously during Ross' set. Pity.
A few years ago, at a more advanced stage of her career, I saw Tori Amos at Centre in the Square in Kitchener. She was pretty good, also a good songwriter, but she used electronics to add layers of sound to her piano. I would have preferred a straight piano. For the first half of the show, she was quite warm and chatty, but someone said something rude to her from the audience and she became angry and sullen and didn't say a word for the rest of the concert. I remember thinking that it was such a pity that a small number of boorish fans can make it difficult for an artist to be herself in front of a crowd.
A few years ago, I decided that I didn't want to be one of those old fuddie-duddies who insists that nobody ever writes songs as good as Bob Dylan and nobody puts on a concert like Bruce Springsteen and no one is quite so authentic and pure and unsullied as Neil Young, and Peter, Paul, and Mary really need another farewell performance..
So I went searching for new artists. Turns out there is a lot of very promising new talent out there, including Ryan Adams, Hidden Cameras, Young and Sexy, New Pornographers, Damien Rice, the Handsome Family, and more. But nobody shines quite as brightly at this moment as Nellie McKay.
Nellie McKay is from New York. She was recently signed by Sony Records (Columbia) and granted a two-disc debut CD! I heard of her on the CBC but then I noticed a couple of newspaper articles on her as well.
Then I noticed she was playing at the El Mocambo in Toronto for $10.00 a ticket.
Now, you can't get a ticket to see Bob Dylan for $10. In fact, I doubt you could buy a bag of peanuts at a Bob Dylan concert for $10. Same, of course, for Springsteen and Neil Young. To see a big, famous artist like that, you have to be prepared to spend $75 for a ticket, at least, and to sit about 400 feet away from the stage, behind a phalanx of body-guards, attendants, police, and whatever. In return for your money and effort you get to hear re-warmed make-overs of songs the artist was previously famous for. People generally don't want to hear new material. They want to hear their favorites.
For $10 each, but the usual Ticket Master pimping surcharges, my daughter, my niece, and I got to walk into the legendary if tawdry El Mocambo on Spadina unmolested. We picked a table and moved it to the front along with three chairs and sat down among real humans.
And we got to see Nellie McKay play from about 20 feet away. After the concert, we walked up to the dressing room and there was Nellie McKay. She wasn't just signing autographs. She was chatting with each individual who waited long enough in line. She was friendly and genuinely pleasant and funny. She had joked about not having enough to eat from the stage, so I joked with her about us keeping her from eating. She autographed the CD's we had purchased with a personal comment on each.
As for the concert, Nellie McKay is one of the most remarkable performers I have ever heard. She plays piano very, very well, and sings brilliantly. For about an hour, she had the entire crowd mesmerized with her bizarre combination of rap, jazz, musicals, and melodramatic swing dirges. Her songs are well-developed, subtle, ironic, romantic, and flamboyant. She has been called "a cross between Eminem and Doris Day". (After searching for a while on Google, I'm still not sure who coined the phrase originally.) She is hysterically funny. She is quick-witted and amusing. She chatted warmly with the audience.
At one point, she led the entire crowd in a weird sing-along, a round. It worked.
She did two encores, at the enthusiastic insistence of the audience.
The opening act, by the way, was a guy named Simeon Ross. He was pretty good, but it was clear that most of the audience was waiting for McKay to appear, so they talked over him. It made me wonder if they were there because of the "buzz" or the music.
I don't want to burden any artist with overblown comparisons, but Nellie McKay reminds me of early Bob Dylan, when she unleashes one of her torrents of words and images about how our insane world swamps us with disconnected ideas and impressions.
She also reminds me of a young Dylan in the way she takes the stage and immediately dominates the room, and fills it with music and commentary and acute observation and sharp wit. She seems to play with words and music right on stage. No artist should ever have to live down a comparison with Dylan, so consider the comparison in it's place-- in regard to her rapid-fire lyrics-- and then forget about it. Nellie McKay is headed off in her own unique direction and we should be thankful for that.
All this for $10.00 each.
Nellie McKay is 19 years old.