Concert Review: Katie Buchanan Shows Generosity Is Key To Performing
Katie Buchanan gave her heart to Mercury Lounge like she had something to prove. That dynamic of showing the world you have heart as if it ever doubted it, transformed her indie-pop initiative into an earthy, spiritual testimony. Thus, it makes sense that she sang her songs, Who We Are When We’re Standing, like they bled from her heart rather than being written by hand.
One of the key ingredients to a great performance is generosity. You have to be willing to give yourself to a crowd, but Buchanan ups such willingness into music servitude. She is serving herself on a platter from “Stand With Me” to “Floating”, and gave the crowd a full-fledged door into her soul. There were no peeks, just peaks, of which she climbed and roared in to state that she was HERE. The excitement was infectious, in part, because you felt like you were witnessing “the start of something”. The air had a certain jitteriness like, a child opening a big, boxed gift. Buchanan’s appreciativeness of the crowd matched with intimacy of her songs. Something about seeing a young woman with a guitar in hand moves me because the guitar is a vessel for our human voice, and women have some beautiful, unheard voices.”I Can Be”, “Oh Lord” , and “The Song About You” and were all tracks that played every moment you were a young woman riding to somewhere and journaling your thoughts. From random to rich “nuggets of wisdom, Buchanan captures the simple beauty of wanting to release your spirit by documenting its motivations. The difference is she know how to put a good, powerful music backdrop to her release.
Instrumentally and vocally, Buchanan has a country-rock edge, which, I believe, comes from the bond between her heart and her guitar. This dynamic feels inherent to country music, and though, in her album, Buchanan prided the electro- pop fusions she pulsed in her songs, but that night, it was her fleshed stringed and percussive arrangements that shined. Nothing like “the realness” of live music to back the realness of your soul. Moreover, you need to have such “realness” when confronting the matter of her album, Who We Are When We’re Standing, which is all about figuring out if how we stand up to and in fronts others in real life measures up to how we do so in our dreams…. For Katie Buchanan, she stands like a dream even in reality. For More Information on Katie Buchanan Click Here.
