Lissie - Hiro Ballroom – New York, NY (10.22.10)
Posted by Ari Berenstein on 10.24.2010
The Rock Island, Illinois native takes on New York City during CMJ and kills it with a spectacular performance.
From California via Rock Island, Illinois all the way through a brand-name developing extended stay in Europe and The United Kingdom, Lissie (Elisabeth Maurus) brought her exceptionally talented two-piece band to New York City’s Hiro Ballroom. It was there amid the hanging Japanese paper lanterns and in front of the giant light-up Kimono Dragon face that she presented a slice of modern mid-western Americana with songs that demonstrated both genuine artistry and emotion.
This was a tour date that Lissie kept, despite a week lay-off of her North American tour due to voice issues. This was an important show for her due to it being a part of the annual higher-profile CMJ tour. She was given the okay by her voice doctor and sang amid a sold-out crowd of journalists and many newly won over fans that caught onto her debut album “Catching a Tiger” and didn’t let go. Along with talented mountain-man bearded guitarist Eric Sullivan and bassist / percussionist Lewis Keller (working both instruments at the same time without losing a step on either), Lissie just about crushed it out of the park through a near ninety-minute set.
Aside from Lissie telling the audience about it, you wouldn’t have been able to tell about her voice problems. It soared through in perfect pitch, tune and volume. The rest must have done her some amazing good, because she hit every high note—and there were plenty of them, as Lissie’s songs have a tendency to be well-paced vocally but aimed at reaching important high and emotive notes.
She got there without a hitch, nailing the mid-point break in “Record Collector” as it swirled and became church anthem gospel and then again at main set closer “Little Lovin’” with its mountain-song yodel coda that garnered hoots and hollers and well-timed claps from the sold-out attendees. The internet album bonus ballad “Here Before” also had deep emotional potency borne out of her vocal power.
Lissie had clear command of the stage and the support of the partisan crowd. She was light-hearted, playful and comedic and eager to tell all about various subjects from her school-born rebellious youth to her recent up-close and personal experience with an Elephant while filming a video for the touching ballad “Everywhere I Go” (where the higher-octave vocals sink its teeth into your heart and rest there). Most clear was her recognition and appreciation of how far she had come in the past several years—thanking the fans and telling everyone she was going to be “straight up” with them throughout the journey.
The band romp-em’ stomped-‘em through the dark and mercurial “Worried About” (a realization of an obsessive past) as well the fast-paced jangly blues of “When I’m Alone” and “In Sleep”, both played with intense urgency and immediacy through the finger picking of the guitar. These were steamrollers, punctuated by well timed blasts of the percussion and bass. The huge trademark to “In Sleep” –its bring-down-the house guitar solo—delivered in spades.
A cover of “Waiting Around to Die”, a Townes Van Zandt song, with opener Dylan Leblanc was performed specifically for a fan who had followed her around the tour. Then “Bully” and “Cuckoo” provided a double-shot look into Lissie’s past, exploring her youth in Rock Island. The former song had a down-home earnestness that spoke to the mid-west experience, but also took on for Lissie a deeper meaning in the current social climate of problems with bullying in schools. The latter is a cleverly crafted pop ditty about the ubiquity of breaking free from the constraints and labels of the school born years of adolescence. The catchy pop hooks of the verse and chorus were underlined by the trio’s harmony call of the song’s title. It was, perhaps like the content of the song indicates, the most free-spirited song of the evening.
The encore set was “Oh Mississippi”, a ballad devoted to that “mighty river” and dedicated on this night to her recently deceased aunt. Then Lissie delivered on the request of many in the audience for her “rollin’ in the mid-west side” twist on Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness”, which amazingly betters the original through the force-and-might of Eric Sullivan’s swooping guitar solos and Lissie’s impassioned sing-song patter.
Video Credit: Organichook
By the end of the night Lissie had delivered the goods on a powerful set that demonstrated that the real and genuine articles are still out there, playing their hearts out. It’s enough to make you scream, like the big breakdown in “Cuckoo”: “yeah, yeah, yeah!”
The 411: Lissie’s voice was almost flawless despite recent vocal issues and so was her band. It was a remarkable set and about the only thing wrong with it was that it inevitably had to end.
