We FINALLY saw Catie Curtis perform. FINALLY. TW has been talking about going to see one of her shows for YEARS but she’s either not in the south when we can go or we can’t go when she is down here.
It’s weird. TW has always been the one to say she wanted to see her but when pressed, TW doesn’t really KNOW much of her music. I, on the otherhand, have never been all that anxious to juggle schedules and drive a couple of hundred miles to see her but I’m the one who knows all of her songs. I think I also enjoyed the show more than TW did… even though she sang Elizabeth, which is one of TW’s favorites but not one of mine.
From things I’ve read about Catie Curtis, I had some concerns that her show would be "too political" particularly in terms of lesbian mommyhood politics. It wasn’t. She wasn’t. She rambled about her kids in the typical mommy rambling way not the I’m a dyke and I’m a mom and do you have a problem with that sort of way. Very "normal" stuff. Cute stuff. Talking about being primary mom, not having star status over the summer, her daughter singing "Milk & Water" instead of "What’s the Matter" and the baby practicing her animal sounds. Just nice mommy stuff.
The crowd at Cafe Eleven was well-behaved – apparently this wasn’t the case when Melissa played there awhile back. (typical rowdy cats in heat and drunk dyke behavior that Melissa too often attracts – maybe if she really DID stop singing DRIVE at her shows she’d attract less of that???) Very crowded show. Opener, Anastasia, was cute but not great, she reminded us of a "Tiffany" aka Michelle type kid – young, somebody’s youngest child, struggling to sort herself out but not work too hard at it because the world should just KNOW who she is and that’s that. Young.
I’ve got a fairly decent boot recording of the show but it is HUGE and I don’t have time to edit it so I can get it uploaded. The iRiver did an ok job of it and maybe in my next life I’ll find time to split it up and edit out the part where I was in the bathroom with Catie Curtis – thinking I had it on pause when in fact it ummm recorded the entire pre-show bathroom visit!
Speaking of pre-show bathroom visit, during the show Catie talks about how tough it can be in a small venue with a shared bathroom. The artist can overhear things about herself that she doesn’t want to hear… for instance playing at a UU Coffeehouse show she overheard one young woman who was less than excited to be seeing her play – she thought she was ordering Dar Williams tickets but hit the wrong button and "oh well, at least these tickets were less expensive!". Catie didn’t hear that sort of thing in this pre-schow bathroom visit… and if she happens to peek in here she might like to know that TW and I paid less for our Dar Williams tickets, we drove a much shorter distance too. Catie was worth the extra price and the extra drive.
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