the hardest part is getting old
I took the train down to Seattle last weekend to see Laura Stevenson's Wheel 10th Anniversary tour.
I didn't hear Wheel when it was released. Laura Stevenson has kinda flown under the radar her whole career and she was definitely outside of my purview in 2013. But--as I've mentioned since I started sporadically jotting things down here again--her music is the music I've grown to love the most since I stopped writing this thing regularly. I'd have a hard time picking my favourite one of her records, but I fucking love Wheel, so I was stoked to hear the whole thing live and in full, especially since I missed her touring it the first time around.
I was also stoked to see a show at the Vera Project for the first time in ages (I think the last time was Shellac before Wheel even came out). Vera's a place that every city should have, but there's not many places like it. It's an always all ages venue that also hosts workshops, an art gallery, a screen print shop, and a recording studio. It's the kind of place I would've lived in when I was 15/16 and I'm just glad it exists. I wish we had something similar here.
Laura was on Craig Finn's (excellent) podcast, That's How I Remember It, and talked about the upcoming tour and how arrangement/production-wise, she did a lot of stuff in the studio because she could. And if I had a complaint about Wheel, it would be that it feels weirdly busy. On that note, it was nice to hear the songs, not exactly reimagined, but given a little space. Opener, "Renée," is a song that already sounds so moving in it's recorded version and it made me well up a little when it reached its climax (quoted in the title of this blog). Most of the familiar flourishes were there, but that extra breathing room really centred things on Laura's voice.
I also loved how it was just dead quiet during songs. As I mentioned above, Laura's kinda flown under the radar and I'd take that further to say it's kinda weird that she's not more popular, especially now, considering how much attention a lot of acts she's inspired are getting. But that also meant that people who go to see her are really there to see her and there wasn't the usual ambient chatter during the quiet parts.
I wish there'd been more time for more songs after the Wheel set, but the encore did included a really beautiful cover of "Strong Enough" (here's that from the night before in Portland) with opener Katie Malco and Kayleigh Goldsworthy (who was on keys and violin in Laura's band). Shout out to soon-to-be Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Sheryl Crow.
now playing: Laura Stevenson - "Telluride"
