Rachael Yamagata @ Bowery Ballroom NYC

I know what you're thinking: Shirelle! More Rachael Yamagata?! WTF?! First of all, you can never have too much Rachael. You just can't. Second, there is a very specific set of circumstances and happenstances that have led us to the Rachael so often in the last few months. Many moons ago, when Rachael's first full-length album was released, I was packing up and getting ready to move back to the States from Japan. I'd read a couple of articles on her and downloaded a few songs (hey, her album wasn't available in Japan yet...and I bought it when I got back to the States). I was sitting in the airport reading Metropolis magazine (the go to guide for what to do in Tokyo), and saw that she was performing in Tokyo that week...but I was about to get on a plane, so no live Rachael for me. So, I moved from Japan back to Los Angeles, then a month later from Los Angeles to stay with family near Boston while I job and apartment hunted in New York. My plane landed in Boston, and I checked out a copy of The Improper Bostonian (a little go to guide for what to do in Boston), and found out that I'd just missed Rachael performing in Boston by three days!! Oh, the agony!! Fast forward to 2008, and Rachael was coming to NYC with the Hotel Cafe Tour. I got a ticket as soon as they went on sale...then, one day strolling through Union Square, I found out she'd be playing a few songs at the Barnes&Noble. Checked that out. Took photos. Posted photos on the blog. Side note: when I met her at the bookstore, I told her my tale of near misses, and she signed my cd like this:

Awesome!

A few weeks later, went to the Hotel Cafe Tour at the Bowery Ballroom. Got some kick ass shots. Posted the photos on the blog. Then, I got an update e-mail from Bowery Ballroom's mailing list and found out she'd be touring on her own in December...so I got tickets for me and Cristina (girl about town and partner in crime). Took photos. Photos posted here! So, stop complaining, sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Okay, so the solo show at Bowery Ballroom: I considered it a particularly good omen when I was coming down the block to meet Cristina - who was very patiently waiting for me (and the tickets) outside in the drizzly rain - and I saw two figures standing outside having a smoke. I'm not a smoker myself, and generally find it to be a rather repulsive habit, but as I exchanged hellos with Cristina, I leaned in and said to her, "That girl smoking over there...is Rachael Yamagata." To which Cristina replied, "Really? 'Cause when they came out, she was all, "I hope it's okay for us to smoke over here."" Then Cristina asked me if I might not go over and give Rachael my general PSA that I recite whenever I see a friend smoking (it goes like this: "You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."). I demurred. On the one hand, the thought of a 40-year-old Rachael with yellow teeth and that phlegmy, hacking smoker's cough kinda breaks my heart. On the other hand, as I've mentioned before, I love her throaty, raspy voice. So, I find myself conflicted, and a little piece of me kinda hopes she never quits smoking if it will guarantee more record releases. Moving on...

The evening started off with opening act, The Low Anthem. As opening acts go, they were actually pretty cool. The Low End is a three person folk rock/blue grass kinda band. Some of the highlights were the constant instrument switches...like, "I loved playing clarinet on that first song, but now I feel like playing drums!" Another unexpectedly cool moment was when the lead singer (who never introduced himself, but I later googled and found out his name is Ben Knox Miller) petitioned the audience for "an older model cell phone with speaker phone". Someone was nice enough to oblige and at the end of the next song, Ben rang his own cell phone from the audience cell phone, put them both on speaker phone and held them up to each other, put them both between himself and the microphone, and whistled...and the feedback sound was something altogether otherwordly! I love it when people McGyver stuff together and it works! Go Low Anthem! Ben's voice is kind of like Duncan Sheik (from the first album, not the subsequent follow-ups that mostly sucked - sorry, but they did). Only Ben's voice has undertones that suggest he could totally kick Duncan Sheik's butt in a bar fight. Of course, Ben wouldn't actually get into a bar fight with Duncan Sheik. He'd probably say something like, "Whoa, I don't want to fight you Duncan Sheik...I just want to make music, man." Then he'd buy Duncan another beer and give him cab fare home. He just seems like that kind of guy. Other band members include Jocie Adams, who's voice lends an even more "Oh-Brother-Where-Art-Thou"-esqueness to the soulful, deep south churchiness of every song (plus, I love the band geekiness of a girl that plays the clarinet, the drums, and the guitar), and Jeff Prystowsky who sang back up and played an enormous upright bass and, I kid you not, a WWI portable pump organ. Worth a look-see for the pump organ and the instrumental musical chairs alone. Go see 'em!
Photo: Bust Magazine

It didn't take long after The Low Anthem finished before Rachael herself took to the stage to much applause and declarations of adoration from the audience (mostly from the really loud girl standing just behind me to the right who sang along to all of the older songs way too loudly in my ear and insisted she personally knew Jeff from The Low Anthem, even though when she tried to get his attention after their set, he looked directly through her and then turned and went on his merry way). Okay, I may have declared my love for her shoes (boots, really) more than once, but I was not alone in this...and Rachael did not want to give up the details! Being the girl sleuth that I am, however, I happen to know that Rachael was featured in the latest issue of Bust magazine whilst wearing these self same shoes and for those that were there and also wondering, they are Steven by Steve Madden. She wore a shimmery emerald green baby doll dress (of nebulous provenance, but very, very chic), black tights with a fat run in them at the left knee, and the afore mentioned supercalifragilistic buckle-up, open-toe boots which I continue to covet and may have to buy myself for Christmas...*sigh*

She opened with the title track off her latest album, "Elephants". She was accompanied on the tiniest cello I've ever seen a grown man play by Daniel Cho. As animated as the audience was when Rachael came out, somehow this song never fails in descending a hush over a crowded room. The piano is sparse and the verses are simple, so it can only be that Rachael herself is so captivating that she sends on-lookers into a sort of melodically induced fugue state. She followed Elephants with Be Be Your Love, the opening piano licks of which sent up raucous cheers from anyone in the ballroom who fell in love with Rachael's voice at the release of her first LP in 2004 (or more recently on her myspace page), and then picked up the guitar for the newest incarnation of Sunday Afternoon. After that she declared that she was switching gears from heartbroken victim songs to songs with a decidedly more "You a**hole! F*ck You!" bent. Songs like Faster and Sidedish Friend got the crowd shouting along, and of course, the between song banter is always a good time with Rachael. During guitar tuning, people would shout out song requests and she would tell a funny story about the song and why she might or might not be doing that one this evening. One girl (guess which one) kept yelling her request for Woman, and Rachael finally had to address the issue. She said whenever she plays it, people think she's a lesbian...and maybe she should dispel all rumours right then and there by making out with a girl. Naturally, this elicited much excitement in the crowd (particularly from a very ardent fan at the back). Rachael took notice and assured her that she was very flattered by all the attention, and although the girl was very hot (Rachael's words, not mine), she may have to pass. I believe the phrase used was something like, "You are really hot...If I didn't have to work right now, up here, it would be all about you and me making out back stage." Then she laughed it all off. According to Rachael, the boys in the band always end up hooking up with girls at shows and stumbling back to the hotel or tour bus in the wee hours of the morning, while Rachael just goes back to the hotel, puts on her pajamas, and reads. A lot. And she says she likes it that way. She reads a lot of books and writes songs about animals. What's not to like?

Best part of the show? I'm sure this will be widely debated by other people who were there. But for my part, I particularly enjoyed Rachael's solo rendition of Duet where she hummed both the male and female parts of the middle verse intermittently ("...and then this part goes (in a deep 'male' vibrato) Hmmmm Hmmm...and then I go (in her own girlish voice) Hmmm Hmm Hmmmm. Hmmm Mmmm. Hmmm Mmmm Hmmm"). She was laughing so hard at herself that she could barely finish the song, and at one point, even had to stop to remember where she was supposed to be on the guitar part. Hilarious! Okay...Maybe you had to be there for that one...well, you should have been. 'Cause it was a good time. Check out the tour if she comes to a city near you.

Here's a taste of what you missed by not being there: Rachael performing What If I Leave?



Video courtesy of Ashmaaaa on youtube.