"Oh yeah, I'm just like Neil Young. Except shittier"
Kathleen Edwards self-effacingly confesses as a persistent squeal of feedback delays a perfectly crestfallen Pink Champagne. Although the song itself (containing "shit" she's oft known to have wished she'd kept quiet) may not instil any great urging to pop corks and let the fizz flow, her return to the capital, allegorically, does just that. And as she painstakingly warbles of "thinking the grass could be greener at last", Edwards finally seems to be sprawled out upon the most viridescent riverbank thinkable.
Thus although the evening may prove intermittently mawkish Edwards has no further need to cross bridges sat atop slush and sludge and tonight, drawing extensively from
her subtly majestic latest record Voyageur, from the acoustic slither of Chameleon Comedian to the reconfigured Adam Wiltzie-ish avant-garde twilight skulk of A Soft Place To Land Edwards' songs here find fixed abode, shacking up in the swoonsome sway of an anxious, baying throng. Although unlikely to evoke such sensationally rabid following, you sense many would shadow her over the entirety of this tour and, funds permitting, back to the cradle that is Toronto given a smidgen of an opportunity. They're thanked profusely over a bewitching hour-plus, echoing back the emotivity produced onstage amidst ethnic rugs and regalia and, as Edwards professes: "Singing songs doesn't come easy any more", they provide the support upon which she thrives, ingraining a previously sequestered conviction within her svelte figure. Irregardless of whether or not it pains her to rock and stroll through the likes of In State, Asking For Flowers, or a pertinently intimate and almost muggy Goodnight California the overriding despondency that loiters within much of her work is hurled victoriously in the backseat (or Sidecar as it were, the track itself tonight sounding particularly well-oiled).
Whilst her musical versatility may dumbfound as she flitters between acoustic, electric and violin, whether bearing teeth and roaring or issuing a perfectly smooth croon, astoundingly, Edwards' voice rings as beautifully in this extravagantly branded, vaguely slipshod venue as you suspect it would off the back of snow-capped mountain range or dust-hued escarpment. Although of Canadian origin and affirming the concept of "moving to America" to be nothing but "an empty threat", Edwards' music pertains to great Americana propensities and on tonight's evidence it's starry and stripy enough to enthral the Hollywood Bowl, with a set length to validate such booking. However she also squeezes in some quintessentially British etiquette, thanking this most divided and dislocated of United Kingdoms for the conception of the Vox amplifier, before shooting our beloved meteorological shit prior to a stirring solo take on Hockey Skates. As with the song itself however this acoustic interlude is bittersweet for although
Wapusk is
considered by Edwards herself to be "rooted in a different experience" to Voyageur, its wispy sparsity would've befitted this section of her set appositely. She wipes away a wayward tear, before hurling herself into Mint, a song – as Edwards brashly accentuates – about "brushing your teeth with someone else's face", her habitual sexual reference seeping into proceedings. And, as she expends all breath on its "sha-la-la" chorus her impassioned yodel whisks ours away.
The typically devastating House Full of Empty Rooms follows, accompanied by a rousing speech on how "a house is not an accomplishment" in reference to Edwards' temporary status as a homeowner. It descends into teary Academy Award-ish fare and although a day or two late, you can immediately forgive her that as trumpets and mandolins tug them heartstrings like never before. Indeed with the vocal aid of a backing singer and propped up by the forceful impact of a full band Voyageur comes to a vibrant sense of vivacity with Going To Hell too intensified fiendishly. Dedicated to her record company, synths modulate and oscillate wildly over extended yet never exasperating guitar solos although as Edwards gazes on avidly you intuit she's pining to take one here or there and you wind up wishing she would. As it's concluded in maddened frenzy she yells possessedly, repeatedly: "Do I sound like fucking country music?" and the great reality is that she really no longer does and, barring the clumpy stadium stomp of Back To Me, parallels between she and Young are tenuous at best. Voyageur is a truly special record although the live show has been moulded into something unabashedly spectacular, imbued with an affecting poignancy and if it occasionally sounded as though all hope had faded it is jubilantly restored tonight. From vagabonding troubadour to veritable triumph, if this really is her
"last kick of the can" then she well and truly dented it.
