Moonglow, lamp low: Eleni Mandell performed Thursday night at Davey's Uptown. / Photos by Timothy Finn/The Star
About halfway through a show that broke the 100-minute mark, Eleni Mandell stopped to peddle T-shirts and a new live CD. In a deadpan manner similar to our resident singing/songwriting heroine Iris DeMent (with a touch of comedian Steven Wright), she exhibited and described the several sizes and colors of souvenirs available at the merch table.
There are worse indignities than having to ask people who have spent $12 or $15 on a ticket to hear you sing to also spend $15 or $20 on a CD or T-shirt so you can eat or buy $3-a-gallon gasoline for a van that probably needs some attention. Everybody has a living to make. But when you are as creative and talented and appealing as Eleni Mandell, certain rituals ought to be someone else's chore. Life isn't always fair, but in some cases it's patently unfairer.
Mandell should be as famous as a lot of women who do what she does, starting with, say, Lucinda Williams and Neko Case and going all the way to Norah Jones, who, by the way, is just one performer Mandell resembled Thursday at Davey's (especially when she sang songs off her mellow new album, "Miracle of Five"). The 100 or so people in the smoke-free back room at Davey's Uptown seemed to feel the same way: They gave her and her excellent band (Ryan Feves, Kevin Fitzgerald and Jeremy Drake) a warm, loud welcome all night.
Her set list included early songs and favorites: "Dreamboat" and "Alien Eye" ("Snakebite"); and "Nightmare Song" ("Thrill"). Some of the new songs, however, prompted the longest and loudest responses: "Moonglow, Lamp Low," "Girls," "Salt Truck" and especially "Make-Out King," a lovely waltz with smart, witty lyrics. She also played a new song, "Needle and Thread" that ought to make it on an album soon.
Mandell glides effortlessly from one style and genre to another -- country to folk to gritty, rocking surf-guitar blues (as in "Pauline" from "Thrill). Or maybe her understated stage manner just makes what is a challenge seem easier than it is. She strums her guitar like she's stroking the chin of a kitten. Even her curtsies are subtle.
She closed with three encores and one was a request: "Nickel Plated Man" a blues-noir ballad from the "Wishbone" album. She killed it. If you missed it or wonder what it sounds like live, you can hear it on "Voxhall and Wuk," the 15-track live album she is selling at her shows. Allow me to recommend it (or any of her eight other recordings) so she doesn't have to.
| Timothy Finn, The Star
Good seeing you last night. Great post by the way :-)
Posted by: red101 | June 01, 2007 at 07:13 PM