New Orleans songwriter Mary Gauthier showed you don’t need to blow out eardrums with extreme volume to blow out the audiences’ minds.
She along with , multi-instrumentalist Scott Nolan and drummer Joanna Miller played an intense set at the Slice, Tuesday, July 9 for an enraptured audience of approximately 50 people.
She played a couple Fred Eaglesmith songs including Cigarette machine and your Sister Club and advised the audience to go see Eaglesmith this week. She didn’t say a lot to the crowd and barely cracked a smile, other than to tell Nolan the next song.
She shifted from side to side while singing, in her smoke and whiskey tempered voice, harrowing stories of down and outers and the seedy underbelly most people don’t usually think about. She created captivating word pictures and I could see why cats like Ray Wylie Hubbard and Fred Eaglesmith rave about her. Each of her songs had about the same effect as taking a shot of straight whiskey.
A song based on the book of Ezekiel, “Wheel Inside the Wheel” was another more upbeat highlight. She cracked a smile as she told Nolan what to play next. Nolan was lost in the moment, alternating between a battered acoustic guitar and a piano.
She spoke briefly about New Orleans and sang a great song “Sugar Cane.”
Other highlights included “Last of the Hobo Kings.” “Lady of the Shooting Stars,” and the very moving “Christmas in Paradise.”
The audience gave her rousing ovation, so she returned to the stage for a couple of powerful numbers “God Damned HIV,” then her signature song “Mercy Now”
