I saw Neko Case at the Keswick Theatre in North Philly and wrote about it for Philadelphia Weekly's music blog, Make Major Moves. Check it out!

A good song pops into your head at unexpected moments. A line, a verse, a chorus that you suddenly realize is brilliant when you’re not listening to it. Neko Case has dozens of phrases that are so striking, and when you listen to her records as much as I have, titles are insignificant. Many will cite her opening track to “Middle Cyclone,” “This Tornado Loves You,” where Case embodies a tornado’s destructive capacity but in a loving way. “Carved your name across three counties” is an act of devotion. She closed her 16-song set at the Keswick on Friday night with this one but that was by no means the end of her show. A standing ovation brought her and her band back onstage for a five song encore. Her crystal clear voice and the power in which she controls it had the North Philly audience begging for more.

She played primarily songs from her latest album Middle Cyclone, some of them to great effect with her full, loud band that filled every corner of 91 year old theatre. She opened with Fox Confessor Brings the Flood gem “Maybe Sparrow” while cartoon imagery filled a canvas behind her and her stellar team of co-conspirators. With a wicked slide guitar, stand-up bass, electric bass, drums and a backup vocalist to support her, “I’m an Animal” achieved the apex of the set’s energy.

Animal imagery is rampant on Middle Cyclone, a continuing trend from previous records. For her second song she sang of killer whales and elephants on “People Got a Lotta Nerve,” singing the convincing chorus “I’m a man man man maneater.” As if she really does eat men but not out of vengence, just necessity; nature. She revisited an old classic, “Favorite,” halfway through her encore which has my favorite animal line in her catalogue: “Last night I dreamt that I hit a deer with my car/ Blood from his heart spilled out on my dress, it was warm.” After that she gave us the gracefully gorgeous “Magpie To The Morning” before closing out the night with “Star Witness” and “Knock Loud.”

Though titles don’t always match up to the lyrics and the chorus, it’s pretty easy to note key lyrics, like “You said I was your blue, blue baby” and “I love girls in white leather jackets” on “The Pharaohs.” Or “I love your long shadows and your gunpowder eyes” on “Prison Girls.” Or on the sad cover song by Harry Nilsson, “Don’t Forget Me,” the words “when we’re older and full of cancer” and “You know I think about you, let me know you think about me too” have haunted me for days.

She played every song brilliantly, sometimes donning a guitar and other times just standing with her hands clasped behind her tilting head to sing into the microphone. She put her gorgeous hair up and down, riffed with her backup singer, and gave some much-needed humor to break up the near silence between songs. It’s not a new thing to say, but Neko Case, like the Mother Earth she is so fond of singing about, is a force to be reckoned with. (Bill Chenevert)



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