After my delightful interview with Cat Ridgeway last weekend, as well as several spins of her latest record, Sprinter, I was very excited to see her perform at Subterranean on Wednesday night. I’m happy to report that Cat is just as down-to-earth and funny in person, and her music is even more powerful and energized on stage.
The one word that kept coming to mind while watching Cat and her phenomenal bassist and percussionist perform: fearless. As she mentioned in our conversation, their saxophone player was unable to join for this tour, leaving a small but mighty trio that captivated the crowd from the start all the way through a beautifully chaotic closer.
The set opener “Get Well Soon”—my personal favorite from Sprinter—set the tone for a loud and raw yet meticulously fine-tuned show. It’s hard to believe that anyone in the room wasn’t sold after hearing that dynamic pop anthem, but any holdouts were immediately drawn by Cat’s casual, genuinely hilarious banter. Introducing Sprinter’s title track, she reflected on its painful inspiration of watching a friend lose their battle with mental health. The audience seemed to appreciate the poignant sentiment, but Cat wasn’t about to let it bring the atmosphere down. “Subject matter aside, it freakin’ rocks,” she promised - and she delivered.
Though the set was fairly short—seven songs running about 45 minutes—it was not lacking in variety. Cat occasionally set her guitar down to pick up a banjo, and “What If,” which Cat said was composed in the aftermath of a double dose of edibles—“the weirdest yet most successful song I’ve ever written,” having topped the CDX Surging And Emerging AAA Chart in April—brought to mind the opening riff of R.E.M.’s “I Believe.”
Cat wasn’t the only multi-instrumentalist on stage, with Natalie DePergola’s dynamic percussion efforts shifting from raucously note-perfect drumming to tambourines and shakers—sometimes at the same time. She and bassist Thomas Allain formed a tight and commanding rhythm section and lent strong harmonies on most songs.
The show ended, appropriately enough, with “Epilogue,” the lead single from Sprinter. Despite the fun, “anything goes” vibe of the night, nothing could have prepared the audience for this tour de force: an extended jam that saw Cat going head to head with DePergola, slapping a banjo and playing it with a mallet before dropping to the floor and playing guitar licks in a display that would make Jimi Hendrix weep with joy.
Earlier in the show, Cat and the band cracked up at an inside joke that they eventually let the audience in on: last fall they made it a point to come up with the most ridiculous nickname they could think of for each stop on the tour, as opposed to the predictable, “Thank you, Chicago!” mantra. With that in mind, I can’t wait to see Cat perform the next time she makes her way to Chee-Chee.