Samira SamatalisWhen Waxahatchee graces the stage at the Oxford Art Factory, she walks into a somewhat reserved room. Undeterred; her entrance is quiet, deliberate and assured.
She wastes no time with introductions and backed by her four piece band, which includes her twin sister Alison Crutchfield, she belts tracks from her most recent album Ivy Tripp performing it almost in its entirety tonight. Opening with ‘Under the Rock’ and ‘The Dirt’, her voice punches directly into the room immediately drawing us in “maybe you got your head caught in a ditch last night / now you’re someone else’s mess tonight.”
Slowly, Waxahatchee manages to warm up the initially reserved crowd and bodies begin to sway. Waxahatchee teasingly tells the room “I’ve missed you Sydney, it’s been a long 6 months.” But besides this short interaction and little moments on stage with her sister, she remains relatively quiet; offering up only her music to us.
On ‘Grey Hair’ she carries across the room her own moments of haunted reflections, “maybe, you’re not the only one / you might, wait and see me become.” Her voice is met with murmurs of appreciation from the audience. On stand out tracks ‘<‘ and ‘Air’, Waxahatchee lets us into that sensitivity of hers that has been drawing in fans since her debut album. However Waxahatchee’s quiet lyrics and voice at times feel drowned out; lost in the thrashing abandon of the drums and the experimentation of a distorted arrangement that sometimes doesn’t quite get there.
But if the main performance is full and loud, the encore provides a much softer landing with Waxahatchee returning solo onto the stage for a stripped down performance. While tuning her guitar she thanks her band who she describes as her ‘best friends’. For fans that were anticipating tracks from her earlier albums, and indeed audience members do begin to shout out their personal requests, Waxahatchee teases us with only two in this encore performance.
She stands still as she breaks into ‘Swan Dive’ from her critically acclaimed second album Cerulean Salt. Deliberate and minimal, the audience remains motionless as she then carries us into the crowd-pleaser ‘Bath Tub’ from her debut American Weekend. Closing with ‘Summer of Love’, one of the highlight tracks of Ivy Tripp, she delicately sings to us one last time in hushed tones that “the summer of love is a photo of us.”
She then leaves in the same manner as she entered; quiet and deliberate.