Thao Nguyen with The Get Down, Stay Down @ Bowery Ballroom NYC

Having seen Thao Nguyen once already on the Hotel Cafe Tour with Rachael Yamagata, I was pretty excited to hear she'd be headlining a show of her own in NYC. She is one of the most fun people to watch perform. I was even more excited when I arrived at the Bowery Ballroom and realised that Samantha Crain would be one of the opening acts. I'd seen Samantha and her band on the Hotel Cafe Tour as well and she is full of adorable, wise cracking, blue-grassing fun.

Samantha Crain & The Midnight Shivers opened the show with their special blend of blues, blue grass, and folk rock. Their set was full of energy and Samantha's unmistakable charm. At one point, she asked if there were any famous people in the audience and had the house lights put up so that she could take a look. Specifically, she asked if America Ferrera was in the audience. Samantha invites America Ferrera to all of her shows in the hope that they will be able to take a picture together and pretend to be sisters...I'm sure she was only half joking when she said this. I mean, if you saw the two of them together, you would totally think they were related...

Next up was Sister Suvi. This band of three was made all the more amusing by the fact that its lead singer played a child's toy guitar with an amp lead taped on for the majority of the set (she also played bass on a couple of numbers). Sister Suvi's indie rock-ness made sense as a show filler on this tour, but it was definitely more in the vein of thrashing guitars and shouting/screaming than Samantha and Thao's skillful guitar plucking and thoughtful lyrics and singing. The biggest hinderance to Sister Suvi's cause was actually the very same toy guitar that made them so endearing. Being a tiny toy thing without a strap, it was necessary for the band's frontwoman to play the instrument while resting it on her chest; but since the toy was already mic'd, its close proximity to the vocal mic gave it twice the volume, drowning out the singer for the better part of the set. The overkill on the twangy toy guitar made Sister Suvi an awkward stage filler to follow Samantha Crain, but also served to make Thao Nguyen's appearance all the more welcome.

When Thao finally took to the stage at 11pm-ish, the room went electric with the energy of the crowd. She was exuberant and amazing to watch as she played guitar and navigated her way about the stage. This is a girl bursting at the seams with talent (all self-taught, by the way). Her stage presence gives off more energy than cold fusion. She was matched word for word by the fans on nearly every song she sang during the evening. She opened Bag of Hammers with a surprise a capella beatbox before the guitar riff kicked in. Skills. Mad skills. At one point, she even pulled out a fat magic marker and used that to strum the guitar strings while she sang. I'm not sure how she can pluck guitar strings with such precision and dance, jitter, and vibrate all at the same time without missing a beat or mangling a chord. Seriously, if she were a little more depressing, I think her guitar skills would draw a lot of comparisons to golden boy, John Mayer. But her songs are so infectiously upbeat (even the ones about loser boyfriends who may be just keeping you around for sex - Body) and so damned catchy that one can't help but sing along after hearing the hook just once. The truth is, Thao is a blues guitarist wrapped up in a pop singing, girlie dress wearing, dancing whirligig of a package. Even in the songs about love and loss, Thao doesn't make you want to cry. She makes you want to shout out and sing along at the top of your lungs. Oh, and she also happens to be mad cool. She even posed for a photo with me after the show...Shweeeeeet!!! Bottom line: Thao Nguyen is one to watch. Don't miss out on her live show if she comes to your area.

Here's a snippet of Thao performing 'Bag of Hammers' live at Bowery Ballroom...Please go see her live show. And BUY HER RECORDS!!!



Thao performing 'Body In Your Bed' live at Bowery Ballroom...run by her MySpace and show her some love y'all.