Tift does indeed Rock

Tift Rocks
Originally uploaded by Kurisu.

I Didn't take my camera, because I didn't want to lug it around, but went to see Tift Merritt last night at the Radcliffe Centre in Buckingham. The pictures here are borrowed from various flickr sets.

Performing with two other musicians (percussionist and guitarist), or solo, she inspired the audience to worship in the converted church, taking advantage of the church acoustics to sing without PA or microphone on "Supposed to Make You Happy", and using the in-house grand piano extensively, for example on the crowd-pleasing "Good Hearted Man.".

The only other person I've ever seen who had the guts to step out from behind a mic and perform without amp/PA is Jonathan Richman. To me it's a measure of real class, because I've rarely been at a small gig (particularly one with mainly acoustic instruments) where I didn't feel the PA got in the way.


Tift Merritt
Originally uploaded by cahernan.

Her piano performances in particular were fantastic. I think where she has used a piano at live gigs (judging from the photos on flickr), it's been an electric or digital model. She said at the beginning that she didn't know how it was that she got so lucky as to finish her 13-month Tambourine tour in a church with a grand piano. It was such an intimate venue that you could hear the clump of her high heels on the floor as she kept time.

It was a Buckingham crowd, which meant that I felt like a mere whippersnapper at 43 years of age. The audience was respectfully quiet (allowing for the non-PA moments), but at the same time reluctant to join in with Ms Merritt when she attempted to get them to sing on "Shadow in the Way." She kept making ironic comments about the rowdiness of the crowd, and you felt for her, but I don't think in the end that it detracted from her performance. And since the last gig I went to was characterised by constant and intrusive natter and a steady stream of trips to and from the bar, I can't say I was too sorry.

It was a Radio 2 crowd, too, and I suspect many people hadn't bought either of her albums, but had heard "Good Hearted Man" on the wireless - since that's the only one that was greeted with applause.

Support act was the shoe-gazing and too-twee The Havenots, a Leicester duo who have been touring the UK with Merritt. Sophia, the singer, seems not to have picked up on the way Tift sings from her diaphragm, fills the room, imbues everything with emotion, and, you know, moves about - a missed opportunity, I think. I bought their album anyway, because I'm sure selling CDs at gigs is an important source of income for them. I'll give it a listen and let you know what they're like with a full band.

For the encore, Tift Merritt performed "Sunday" (from Bramble Rose), which she said she hadn't done in so long that she needed the words in front of her. That said, I didn't see her look at them, so it was more for security I guess.

Predictably, she played a tambourine on "Tambourine" (and on "Shadow", I think), and played it so hard that I thought her hand would drop off.


Tift still rocking
Originally uploaded by 5500.

Anyway, to use a technical term, this was fucking excellent and now usurps Maria McKee at the Town and Country in 1991 as Officially the Best Gig Ever.