[ATTENDED: November 3, 2017] Jen Cloher
Sarah and I were really excited to see Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile. And we were really intrigued that Courtney’s wife, Jen Cloher was opening for them (it is not lost on me that Courtney has said she used to go to see Jen when Courtney was just starting out and that Jen is opening for her).
I have never been to the Tower Theater before. I had been told it’s a great venue. Well, Sarah and I had a pretty miserable experience in and around the venue (which had nothing to do with the music). It took forever to get there. Sure, it was a Friday night, but it took us almost two hours. The Theater is in a fairly residential area, so the traffic around it was dreadful. And then parking was a nightmare, and we had to pay $20 at a garage that was clearly just people co-opting a commuter parking lot and making money off of it. The Theater entrance was packed, so it took about five minutes to get through the security and ticket checkers. And then the front foyer was just a mass of wall to wall people. When we finally got to the actual theater entrance, Cloher was already playing and there were no ushers to help us with our seats.
We got to our seats, finally, and managed to hear all of two songs.
We heard the end of a song and then she chatted a bit. She talked about her current experience of playing theaters opening for her sweetie. She joked that it was a good way start to her touring life in the US.” She played the song “Rain” which was quite nice.
And I really enjoyed her final song “Strong Woman.” She explains that the song was inspired by her childhood obsession with the classic arcade game, Galaga (she confessed that she wasn’t sure if we’d pronounce it differently). She said she went to the local corner store to play, but there were all these “cool” teenaged boys there. She was intimated so she wore a cap and passed herself off as John. The kids bought it. And as John, Jen kicked ass all over Galaga and won the respect of the boys. Then one day her mom came in, yelled “Jennifer, you come home this instant!” She was furious but she heard all of the boys going “Jennifer?!” The song was catchy with great lyrics.
I was just settling in, ready to hear more, but she was done. The photo above is of her leaving the stage, which is a pretty accurate picture of my memory of her set.
According to reviews, she only played 6 songs, but I would have enjoyed more, for sure. She told us that she would be playing Johnny Brenda’s in January with Courtney playing guitar for her. I’m pretty curious to hear what that more rocking show will be like.
Just to continue with the crumminess of the Tower Theater, we went out to the lobby during intermission and it was so packed we could barely move.
I can’t imagine ever going back to Tower Theater, no matter who is playing there.
Setlist:
Needs
David Bowie Eyes
Sensory Memory
Kamikaze Origami
Rain
Strong Woman
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