Rachael Yamagata

Hotel Cafe - August 28, 2005

Live Review by Adam McKibbin

Rachael Yamagata’s Happenstance was an album of easy charms, from its sprightly melodies to its jazz-tinted sultriness.  Following an EP that garnered comparisons to Fiona Apple and Norah Jones, Yamagata proved herself capable of finding her own space somewhere on the outskirts of those neighborhoods.  The primary flaw of Happenstance was that it felt, at times, a little too clean.  That’s not a problem that carries over to Yamagata’s exceptional live show.

Yamagata was right at home returning to the cozy confines of the newly expanded Hotel Café (a musician’s venue that has retained its intimacy despite tacking on some extra square feet).  Threading some new songs alongside the standards from Happenstance - including one that was done a cappella – Yamagata bounced between her guitar and the Hotel Café’s trusty, rickety piano.  The real treat, though, was obviously her voice, and it’s beguiling on record but best experienced live.  A few critics have remarked that Yamagata doesn’t have the range of some of her peers, which is true and readily apparent in the higher register.  So what?  This wasn’t American Idol, and her songs, in general, are actually given more personality and weight because of that audible fragility and strain (her voice fell apart altogether at the start of one song, leaving her to joke, "This is like my worst nightmare, only I’m awake”).

Lost love is the dominant theme in her songs (and audience banter), but it doesn’t bog down the material or push it in a single direction.  She ranges from somber, pretty piano ballads to bluesy near-rockers with big vocal plateaus shaped by cigarettes and booze and, most importantly, some genuine emotion—even if she's playing the song for the 200th time.  “Paper Doll” especially benefited from this directness, building to a stirring, gutty conclusion that, like many of its companions on the evening's set list, outshone its recorded twin.