Last night I stayed up well past my bedtime for a midnight soiree with the one and only, Nellie McKay. The show marked her second visit to New York's Joe's Pub within the past two weeks and it was incontestably glorious (albeit surely too brief at sixty minutes, flat).
Over the course of the evening, Nellie bounced back and forth between her debut,
Get Away From Me, & her sophomore LP,
Pretty Little Head, while jugging a handful of random covers, in-progress tracks + a taste of her forthcoming record,
Obligatory Villagers.
This review would be incomplete if I didn't provide a link to
StopColumbia.org. As the site explains: "Columbia University wants to bulldoze 18 acres of West Harlem, displacing families and eliminating businesses and jobs, to develop a hazardous biotech research center, luxury housing and retail, and other facilities, in a cluster of high-rise buildings that it would exclusively control. All of Harlem, Washington Heights, Morningside Heights, and Hamilton Heights are at risk." Nellie not only had a 'Stop Columbia' banner behind her last night, but also encouraged all in attendance to learn more about the injustices carried on by the college. She then gave away a book (see top photo) by a former Columbia professor who recently quit following a dispute with the Columbia bureaucracy regarding these issues. Nellie performed + dedicated an abrasive version of 'Columbia Is Bleeding' to him.
Other highlights of the evening included a 'techno-bluegrass' version of 'David' (per request), as well as a tip-top rendition of 'Bee Charmer'. For the latter, Nellie was joined by a fan with a superb and hilarious Cyndi Lauper-esque vocal delivery (for those out of the loop, Cyndi duets with Nellie on the recorded version of the tune). The opening (Music Slut fave), 'Toto Dies', also brought many smiles to the Nellie faithfuls in attendance.
Catch Nellie McKay at a city near you at one of
these forthcoming North American gigs.
MP3: Nellie McKay - David (live @ Joe's Pub, circa '03)
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