I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 29, 2023] Tasha

I had been wanting to see Margaret Glaspy for a pretty long time.  She last played Philadelphia in 2016, about two months before I heard her album.  She was supposed to headline a tour back in 2020, but that show was postponed, so it’s not all her fault that it took me so long to see her.

And now, I’ve seen her three times in a year and a half.

Tonight I had tickets to see Explosions in the Sky, a band I loved seeing live and who I’ve wanted to see again (and again).  But when Margaret Glaspy announced her show for tonight, after careful consideration, I decided to see Margaret. The first time I had seen her was as an opener.  The second time was for a short free at noon.  So I had never seen her as a headliner, and that won out.

She was terrific.

The set was similar to the Free at Noon–all 8 songs were played here too, although not in the same order.

Like the Free at Noon, her band was a trio with Lee Falco on drums and Scott Colberg on bass [when she opened for Spoon, her band was Chris Morrissey on bass and Tim Cool on drums].   They sounded big, especially with Falco’s impressive drumming.

She started with the same three songs as at Free at Noon and they work as such a great opening.  “I Didn’t Think So” is slow and powerful and basically says that Margaret is here.  “Act Natural” is the ubiquitous single on WXPN and it sounds even better live.  And “Irish Goodbye” is a clever song with a catchy refrain.

She slowed things down for the lovely jazzy “Memory Street” (from her debut).  This is one of my favorite songs of hers and it really comes to life in a live setting.  The song is quiet, but Margaret brings out her growliest vocals.  And there’s a great part in the song where she sings about a record skipping and the band plays “times I, times I, times I” about eight times–it’s very cool.

Her new song “Female Brain” is a ripping snarky feminist song that opens with the line “Don’t be a dick.”

She played the entire new album (I prefer it when they don’t leave out that one song), so it was great to hear “Hammer and the Nail” and the scorching “My Eyes.”

But I’m also glad that she played her big songs from her first album. “You and I” is such a good song, I love hearing it.

Then the band left and Margaret played a few songs solo.  She explained that she was the smart musician who put out an album in March of 2020.  (then she bowed).  Someone shouted to play something from the album, and she said she was going to.  So she played “Heartbreak” a powerful song.  Interestingly when she opened for Spoon, she played three songs from Devotion, but that’s the only song she played from the album tonight.

The new song Turn the Engine got the solo treatment as did the older song “Somebody to Anybody,” a great song from her debut.

She started to play the new song “Memories” and when she was in the middle, the guys came back and the song really took off.

Margaret put out an EP in 2018 that I missed completely.  It has a fantastic song “Before We Were Together” which is a great kiss-off as ever there was.  And then she surprised everyone (even those of us who could see the setlist when “You Learn” turned out to be the Alanis Morissette song.  She sang it rather differently, but it worked really well.

I was surprised at some of the deep cuts from Emotions and Math, like “Parental Guidance,” a rather dark song about kids.  She followed it up with the title track from that album, and one of my favorite songs of hers.  It’s always great to hear it.

The setlist said that “Situation” was supposed to come next, but she didn’t play it, which is only a bummer because it is so good.

But she jumped in with another song from the Born Yesterday EP, “One Heart and Two Arms” which has some of the noisiest guitar playing on any of her songs–and live she really laid into it, with big noisy, slightly out of tune chords.  It was awesome.  She joked at one point that “tuning is for losers” and said that that was going to be her new catchphrase.

The setlist got twisted around by this point, as she started the absolutely killer “Get Back” a song that I assumed was the show ender.  I remembered being blown away by it last time: I love the construct of “Get Back” which had Glaspy singing a long held note over a series of punched heavy chords.  It was even better this time.  She recently said how much she loved playing it.  She held those notes for so long–a power that she doesn;t necessarily exhibit very often. It was a great set ending song.

They came back out for an encore and played the new “People Who Talk,” which was actually before Get Back on the setlist.  Hmmm.

They ended the show with a song that Margaret said is her favorite and one she wished she had written, Lucinda Williams’ “Fruits of My Labor.”  I didn’t know it, but I enjoyed their rendition.  There was even a moment for Colberg to play some bass solos.

It looked like Margaret was having a great time and she invited everyone over to talk with her at the merch table.  Since I had bought her album from her at Free at Noon, I didn’t have to meet her again, and I was vey happy to get home pretty early after a reasonably early show.

 

Underground Arts September 29, 2023	Free at Noon August 18, 2023	May 4, 2022 [Spoon]
I Didn’t Think So ♦	I Didn’t Think So ♦	I Didn’t Think So ♦
Act Natural ♦	Act Natural ♦	Act Natural ♦
Irish Goodbye ♦	Irish Goodbye ♦	Get Back ♦
Memory Street €	My Eyes ♦	Stay With Me Ð
Female Brain ♦	Emotions and Math €	Vicious Ð
Hammer and the Nail ♦	You and I €	Emotions and Math €
You and I €	Memories ♦	Memory Street €
My Eyes ♦	Get Back ♦	You and I €
Heartbreak Ð (solo)		Situation €
Turn the Engine ♦ (solo)		My Body My Choice [new]
Somebody to Anybody € (solo)
Memories ♦ (solo to start, then full band)
Before We Were Together ß
You Learn (Alanis Morissette cover)
Parental Guidance €
Emotions and Math €
One Heart and Two Arms ß
Get Back ♦
encore
People Who Talk ♦
Fruits of My Labor (Lucinda Williams cover)
“Situation” was on the setlist but not played.

♦ Echo the Diamond (2023)
Ð Devotion (2020)
ß Born Yesterday (2018)
€ Emotions and Math (2016)