Live Review: Waxahatchee & Anna St. Louis @QMU Glasgow 30/07/24

After releasing ‘Saint Cloud’ during the pandemic, Katie Crutchfield’s life changed. She found a new audience within the Americana scene, while also maintaining her core fans from her earlier indie rock records. Success in the genre led to the Plains collaboration with Jess Williamson and even working with Wynnona Judd, further underscoring her dedication to explore her Southern roots and influences.

Katie and her brilliant band (who included Spencer Tweedy on drums) came to Glasgow for the first time in many years, fresh from releasing the new album Tiger’s Blood. She performed that album in full, relishing in the opportunity to play these songs to a sold out audience.

Supporting her on this tour was the lovely Anna St Louis, whose last album ‘In the Air’ was produced by Kevin Morby. She performed her songs seated, captivating the audience immediately with beautiful songs like ‘Trace’ and ‘Better Days’. A cover of Lee Hazelwood’s ‘Your Sweet Love’ was another stand out, alongside the gorgeous new one ‘Farther Away.’ She spoke appreciatively of Glasgow and her love of the Scottish accent, and her soft, folk styling will have no doubt made her many new fans.

After a short break Katie Crutchfield took to the stage, opening her set with 3 Sisters. She prowled around the stage with a cool confidence that’s hard to match. After leaning heavily into the feminine dresses for the last album, her style has now embraced a more masculine side, wearing jeans and a baseball cap, the latter of which she actually threw into her adoring crowd.

Picking up her guitar for songs like Can’t Do Much showed the influence of Lucinda Williams on her current musical style. Crowbar echoes Passionate Kisses and Lone Star Lake also brings in a similar sense of place to her music. What sets Katie apart from her musical heroes is her intriguing lyrical imagery and her original musical slant.

The Plains songs are more straightforward and therefore easier to sing along to, all getting a great reception from the crowd. The three she sang at the show: Problem With It, Line of Sight and Hurricane show she’s equally adept at writing a catchy chorus and simple hook.

‘Bored’ suggests that this is an artist who doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and while she may run ‘Ice Cold’ there was a sense of fun throughout the night, mainly because of how happy she seems with this band and these songs.

There was an emotional rawness to her vocals throughout the set, sounding especially great on Burns out at Midnight, Lilacs and Right Back to It (her engaging guitarist did a fine job of subbing for MJ Lendermen on that one as well).

During the show she fit in a hell of a lot of songs, 24 to be precise, and that’s an achievement in itself because these songs are all so lyrically dense. There was no space for her older material, although she has indicated that she may re-record the songs with her current producer in a more Americana style. I think songs like Sparks Fly and Fade could easily be reworked, but at the same time, she doesn’t need to look backwards when she’s on such a hot streak.

For the encore she even sang something new, the powerfully rich sounding ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ before finishing with a devastating version of 365, a song about the collapse of a friendship.

She left us with Fire, singing her heart out and proving that sometimes it takes time for an artist to come truly alive but when they do they burn bright.