Back in May, I had the privilege to chat with the infectiously joyful Cat Ridgeway and see her incredible live show, so when I learned she was returning to the Chicago area—sorry Evanston; Space is a great venue, but you’ll always be the suburbs—I knew I had to do both again, and was left just as delighted and impressed with Cat’s effortless charm and talent in both settings.
“I’m the same on and off stage, and there’s not really a persona so to speak,” Ridgeway says. “What you see is what you get.” And what you get is a passionate, authentic, and impactful performer who leaves her audience feeling excited and wanting more.
Accompanied by bassist John Dorney and drummer Natalie DePergola, Ridgeway kicked off the high-energy set with three cuts from this year’s Sprinter. The title track, inspired by a friend who lost her battle with mental illness, led to an alliance with the organization Find Your Anchor, and, as Ridgeway noted when she introduced the song, “Subject matter aside, it freakin’ rocks.”
“You have to have yin and yang,” Ridgeway says of the composition. “Having the musicality meet the lyricism in a place where the lyric might be heavy, but then there’s an energy and a levity in the music that’s paired with it—it feels good to play it.”
Though the set lasted only about 30 minutes, it was packed with powerful, gripping moments, concluding with its two undeniable highlights: a note-perfect, grungy cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams,” which featured a beautiful six-part harmony from Ridgeway, layering each one individually and looping them into a climactic finish that blew the audience away. That led directly into “Epilogue,” a spiraling demonstration of organized chaos in which Ridgeway, Dorney, and DePergola played musical chairs and swapped instruments, and Ridgeway’s banjo served as part of DePergola’s drum kit.
“I’ve loved every set, but this set’s really special,” Ridgeway says. “It’s all killer, no filler. We’re just coming out the gate guns a-blazing.”
When I pointed out that the day after this show marked the one-year anniversary of “Epilogue” being released as Sprinter’s first single, I asked Ridgeway to sum up this past year in a single word.
“Initially, my kneejerk reaction is just ‘insane,’” she mused, estimating that she’s been to at least 30 states over the past 12 months. “When you start making music, you kind of make it for yourself, and then you start playing it for people, and you see, ‘Oh, this is way bigger than just me.’”
Here’s to next year being even bigger for the immensely talented Cat Ridgeway.
