Fox Confessor brings the flood; not fans

[Guest blogger August Brown is actually an auxiliary member of New Pornographers too. They roll deep.)

At least Neko Case had a sense of humor about playing in tonight's "Lemonheads spot" opposite George Strait. Her criminally tiny crowd wouldn't have filled the Echo, and one gets the sense that someone at her booking agency is kicking themselves that they didn't get her on the Coachella bill instead. We were hoping for Case to have a breakout set, but that's hard to give when your sound crew nearly outnumbers the audience. Yet Case kept her spirits up, covering a Strait tune while his actual songs bled over to her stage, and did her darnedest to appease the alt-countryites who stuck around for a virtuosic, if a bit autopilot, set of haunting originals.

Case's last album, "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood," was a strangely beautiful song cycle loosely based in half-remembered Ukranian folklore and backed by members of Calexico. Case looked a bit scruffy after a rough day where her bassist was hospitalized after a car accident earlier, but she gamely ran through resonant, twangy highlights like "That Teenage Feeling" with grace and sheepish good cheer. Case's voice is always a welcome force of nature, but many forget that her songcraft and lyrics are as dense and rewarding as her harmonies. If only more folks were there to hear them.