Photo credit: Brianna Griepentrog
“This is why I always start my tours in the Midwest,” Neko Case beamed after a supportive roar of applause Wednesday night at the Pabst Theater. It was the first night of the singer’s tour behind her latest collection of songs about man’s hubris and nature’s fury, Hell-On, and she was uncharacteristically nervous, so much so she could barely contain her jittery energy between songs.
By her own admission, she was a little off her game. She stumbled over some vocals in “Deep Red Bells” and bungled a few lines in other songs, but what she lacked in polish she made up for with good spirits. She laughed off her flubs without apologizing for them. “I know this one!” she joked as she introduced a song she was reasonably sure she could perform without incident, “Halls of Sarah,” a typically twisty, demanding number from the new record.
It was a bit unexpected, seeing such a fierce, lionlike presence in such a slaphappy mood. Late in the show, she made a joke about her guitarist’s advanced age—apparently a favorite pastime of hers—that amused her so much she could barely catch her breath. Since nobody could decipher it through her laughter, she explained it to the crowd once she regained her composure: You know how mummies keep their organs in separate jars? That’s what her guitarist does. That nobody else found the joke especially funny didn’t diminish her pride in it any.
Case’s six-piece backing band didn’t seem nearly as daunted by the pressure of opening night as their leader. With poise and focus, they made the rock songs thunder and ornamented the slow ones with blissful twang. Despite the complicated arrangements of the new material, they always found the perfect way to frame Case’s remarkable voice, highlighting its endless permutations of honey, steel and frost. Case has performed in Milwaukee plenty over the years, sometimes on her own and sometimes as part of The New Pornographers, but repeat exposure does nothing to diminish the wonder of that voice. It’s always astonishing hearing it live, witnessing with your own ears that it isn’t just some elaborate studio illusion, that it really exists in the wild.
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As she was bidding farewell after her encore, Case rendered a jovial verdict of the night: “super messy.” Despite some rough edges, though, the show was spot-on where it counted.
