The Blow @ NYU

SOLD OUT! the signs outside the Kimmel Center at NYU read. "Selling" out a free show is no great feat in this expansive city of ours, but for a unreal venue [but not like Unreal Tournatment is unreal] and for a small act like the Blow, it caught most of us off guard and ticketless. I got lucky. Other people just waited and walked easily right in.

Liz Isenberg began the show with songs structured like fancies of Joanna Newsom, but on guitar. The music demanded too much intimacy than the space could provide. I can't say I found her outright boring but at the time I couldn't focus, especially with that crowd. Her stuff on myspace is sweet though, so give that a shot.

Now: the crowd. I don't mind NYU kids. Stereotypes blah blah blah. I dislike people who characterize NYU kids as a brand. I hate prejudices of all types. Trust fund kids bleed when you dismember them too. But there I was, witnessing so much hipness, so much irony, so many kids wearing their father's high school clothes. Freaks and Geeks Redux. I don't mind that even, but put 400 or so of them in a room and -like the little sexy scientists we were- we noticed patterns emerge. I blame the Olson twins. Anyway, why were there so many? Was this some mandatory dorm event? Past NYU events never felt so skewed.

The Blow held the stage much more confidently even though there was still only one person in front of us. Khaela began by directing the lighting - which went from dreadful to plain awkward [although by the end, it wasn't so terrible]. Khaela separates herself from other female singers in that her voice falters and wavers -but not from any nervousness- but rather like she's diddling around the house and not performing in front of hundreds. It's in this unabashed weakness makes the songs most powerful. The songs are so bare it's unfortunate she narrates so often between songs, trying to make the entire show follow some emotive story.

Anyone that has seen the Blow knows the most memorable thing isn't the songs themselves, but Khaela's movements as she sings them. Ever since CMJ, I can't listen to Paper Television anymore without picturing her gesturing to me while she sang Parenthesis. I could feel it. We connected. I melted into a puddle of Red Stripe right there.

This time, in the cavern of the auditorium, she tried she hardest to find me among the students and reach out...

but I blend in too well.