There is no show like a great rock show. While there are great performers and bands in every genre and style of music, nothing hits quite like a well-executed, high energy rock show. Last Saturday night, Courtney Barnett showed why she is one of the finest modern practitioners of the form in a tour-de-force performance at the Palace.
What makes a great rock show a great rock show can be discussed and debated until the end of time, and of course one great rock show can look different from another. The essential core however, energy, spirit, and songs, are binding throughlines in most if not all great rock shows. Both Barnett and Opener Truman Sinclair exemplified all of the above, albeit in different ways. Sinclair and his band delivered a punchy and gutsy 45 minute set to open the evening. While the band’s sound felt heavily indebted to alt-country (comparisons to 90’s luminaries Son Volt, the Jayhawks, and the rowdier side of Whiskeytown feel both inevitable and on point), the core of what they did was pure rock and roll. With well-written songs that felt tight, propulsive and cathartic, and with performance chops to boot, Sinclair and Co. ripped through a fantastic opening set. They brought energy and an edge that you rarely see from an opening act. More importantly, perhaps, the band set the stage for what was to come.
If there was any doubt that Barnett and her band weren’t up to the task of following such a high-energy opening set, it evaporated approximately one minute in to Set opener “Stay in My Lane,” the opener to Creature of Habit, Barnett’s latest album. In the studio, it’s one of the album’s stronger songs, but live it was transformed into something heavier and more intense. From that point onward, the band didn’t look back. Barnett and her trio (which included the stellar Stalla Mozgawa on Drums) took no prisoners in the 20 song show. Barnett is such a unique, and gifted songwriter that it’s easy to forget how skilled she is at guitar, but watching her shred through her deep catalog was a sight to behold. Not every song had an extended theatrical solo, but her playing kept the audience on their toes the entire time.
Being the Great songwriter that she is of course, the songs were also very center-stage. Her early output remains some of her most famous and beloved, but she’s built a really strong catalog across the last decade-plus. Creature of Habit, a very solid addition, naturally got a lot of run in this show (“Mantis” and Set closer “One thing at a time” were especially strong). Those beloved early hits (“Depreston,” Elevator Operator,” “Avant-Gardener” among others) were also especially well-received. Perhaps her best rock song from that era (and one of the great rock songs from it’s era), “Pedestrian at Best” received the most rapturous response from the audience. It’s truly a cathartic ripper of a song that the band imbued with an appropriate urgency befitting a great rock show.
