Reviews Updated 01/01/2005 Cat Power, Women & Children Rosemount Theatre Patrick original article link Beautiful. Terrible. Psychotic. Marvellous. Painful. Amazing. I have never seen a performer quite like Chan Marshall. A Cat Power gig is something to behold, and not something to forgetÉ First the support band last night, who were rather beautiful. No, not Andrew Ryan. He was fine and dandy, but Women & Children, an ostensibly French band of multinational origin, who it appears even Soulseek has heard nothing of. Chamber-Low. Stunning voice, reminded me a little of Nico. Truly quite haunting, at least from the vantage of the Rosemount floor. Not having any bucks on me at the show, the CD is on its way from InSound. Clever googling (not the easiest band name to search for) eventually led to their label site and this is what they sound like. I think the closet goth in me could be happy with this new find. All the cool kids will have been into them for forever by this time next year. Not having seen Cat Power live before, I was prepared for a terrible experience. Chan MarshallÕs chronically bad stage presence is the stuff of lo-fi legend, and last night was no exception. The Rosemount floor is not the most accomodating place at the best of times, but when you are forced to sit on it by a woman who looks in danger of vacating the stage if you disobey, well, you just gotta cross those legs tight. At least it frees me of gangly tall person guilt. She kicked her band off the stage after a few songs, streamed snot and hacked up phlegm from a lung infection, almost tore her own hands apart singing solo, and dragged a dwindling crowd along on a schizophrenic but mesmerising journey. A baseball cap, brought in with the good intention of keeping her hair out of her face, was taken on and off sometimes up to three times during a song, and her hair went through phases of being up, down, pony tailed, braided. A light shining too brightly where she sat was dealt with by standing on a stool (half way through a song) and turning its glare away. But somewhere in there, amidst the mania and mumbled anecdotes about tobacco plantations, there was that voice. You knew it would always shine through. She didnÕt really finish many of her own songs, and of course I didnÕt hear the ones I wanted to, like Say, but she has always been more comfortable with her covers. I guess they provide a good cloak. Most beautiful of all was a slightly reworked version of Will OldhamÕs Wolf Among Wolves, my most favourite track from Master and Everyone. And was that Peaches she finished up with? Did she really segue from Otis Redding to Peaches (fuck the pain away) or was that some crazy vision I had? ThatÕs some kind of crazy insane genius if she did, but perhaps if I imagined it, IÕm the insane genius. Fairly sure IÕm not. A night, for so many reasons, that will hold strongly in my soul. It would have been easy to hate, if I was watching from a slightly different angle, or if the light was shining in my eyes that little bit differently. And many people did. It wasnÕt a show, it was occasionally torturous, but it was a performance. And as much as she wouldnÕt want you to think so, Chan Marshall is a consummate performer. The fact that I have never been motivated to write a decent gig review here before, not even for that glorious Mountain Goats gig a month or two back, must mean something.