Review: Waxahatchee at Astor Theatre

Waxahatchee at Astor Theatre
w/ Charlie Collins
Friday, November 29, 2024

At Perth’s Astor Theatre on Friday night, Waxahatchee‘s Katie Crutchfield’s between-song banter was somewhat restrained, but towards the end of the evening, she shared an observation as heartfelt and inflicting as the set of songs that preceded it. She described how beautiful it was to travel abroad and perform to a roomful of people who knew every song. And with that, Crutchfield upped the emotional ante and closed the set with a sublime rendition of the title track from her newly Grammy Award-nominated album, Tigers Blood.

Waxahatchee’s musical ascension has been something of a slow burn. After releasing two lo-fi albums on the experimental label, Don Giovanni Records, in the first half of the 2010s, Crutchfield subsequently put out two indie-rock records, Ivy Tripp and Out in the Storm, through Merge Records. After the release of the latter, the Alabama native gave up alcohol, took stock of her life, and teamed up with producer Brad Cook. The result was 2020’s country-tinged Saint Cloud, which poignantly explored addiction and codependency and gave Waxahatchee its first taste of mainstream success.

Earlier this year, Crutchfield released Waxahatchee’s sixth full-length recording, Tigers Blood. The album’s resonance picked up where Saint Cloud left off, furthering the acclaim and yielding Waxahatchee’s first Grammy Award nomination in the form of Best Americana Album. Waxahatchee’s end-of-evening rendition of the title song from Tiger’s Blood perfectly demonstrated precisely what has solicited this level of recognition—impeccably crafted and relatable songs delivered with honesty, gusto, and poise that Crutchfield shares with a vocal dexterity as warm as it is sincere.

Waxahatchee fittingly walked out onto the Astor Theatre stage to a soundtrack of Dolly Parton’s Here I Am, and quickly launched into the slow burn of 3 Sisters, the opening track from Tigers Blood. Staying true to the album’s sequence, the band then delivered Evil Spawn and Ice Cold before backtracking to Saint Cloud for a gorgeous rendition of the sublimely catchy Can’t Do Much. With acoustic guitar in hand, Crutchfield effortlessly commanded the stage with the poise of Sheryl Crow and delivered her songs with a balance of Dolly Parton-infused sweetness and Lucinda Williams grit.

Next up was one of the highlights of the night (not just because of its Jet-Pep reference)—an inspired rendition of Plains’ song, Problem With It. A collaboration between Crutchfield and Los Angeles-based Texan singer-songwriter Jess Williamson, the song is one of Crutchfield’s contributions to their 2022 album, I Walked with You a Ways. Problem With It bounced along on a bed of electric and pedal steel guitar, which peeled away for Crutchfield to poignantly declare, “If you can’t do better than that, babe, I got a problem with it,” before the instrumentation blazed back to emphatically close out the song.

Instrumentally, the current incarnation of Waxahatchee cannot be faulted. With Crutchfield supplementing her sublime vocals with acoustic guitar, Colin Croom handled electric, pedal steel, and dobro guitars; Cole Berggren swapped between keyboards and banjo; Eliana Athayde played bass; and Spencer Tweedy was on drums (something that no doubt accounted for the plethora of Wilco t-shirts in the audience). But, as good as the collective was, their performance was uncomfortably let down by a mix that at times rendered Berggren’s keyboard and banjo inaudible.

Returning to Saint Cloud, Crutchfield delivered infectious renditions of The Eye and Hell before venturing back to Tigers Blood for a sultry performance of Right Back to It, the harmonica-driven Burns Out at Midnight, a vibrant offering of Bored, the divine Lone Star Lake, and the fast-pitched wordplay of Crimes of the Heart, all delivered in album sequence. Oxbow then had Crutchfield at the edge of the stage angelically hollering, “I want it all” over and over again before returning to the Plains album for the gorgeous dobro infusion of Line of Sight.

With Witches followed by Crowbar, Ruby Falls, The Wolves and Hurricane, the evening featured one impeccably written song after another. The magnificent Lilacs had the audience singing along before Waxahatchee closed out the set with Tigers Blood. Guided along by Croom’s sultry dobro guitar and a sprinkling of banjo from Berggren, the song built to the point where Crutchfield vocalising was commandingly joined by the entire band. It was a magical moment.

Returning for an encore, Waxahatchee delivered Much Ado About Nothing followed by 365. Gently tapped along by Tweedy and with Crutchfield vocally backed by Athayde, Croom emphatically closed out 365 with a hefty burst of tremolo-ladened guitar. As the guitar sustain dissipated, a chime of keyboards heralded the moment the audience had obviously been waiting for. To rapturous applause, Crutchfield returned to the edge of the stage from where she bellowed out her ethereal vocals over Fire’s ridiculously infectious guitar riff. As the crowd clapped along, Crutchfield delivered the song’s final line, “For some of us it ain’t enough,” one last time before she disappeared off stage, leaving the band to play out the song. With the hand clapping morphing into wild applause, it was sentiment the audience clearly shared.

After a set that featured Crutchfield’s crowning moments from I Walked with You a Ways, most of Saint Cloud, and the entirety of Tigers Blood, it seemed an eternity since Sydney-based singer-songwriter Charlie Collins had opened the show.

Collins easily won over the filling Astor Theatre with her acoustic ballads, something that was clearly evident by the growing and vocal populace that gathered at the front of the stage. Having recently returned from New Zealand, where she recorded a new album with Neil Finn—who coincidentally also performed in Perth with Crowded House that night—Collins delivered a set of new compositions, including Not Man Enough and Transactional Deal. One of the highlights of her 30-minute set was a yet-to-be-named song she had apparently written that day that seductively ebbed and flowed with Collins’ enchanting vocal delivery.

BRETT LEIGH DICKS

Photos by Adrian Thomson