Patty Griffin Live at the Warner Theater

I can’t do justice to a review of a Patty Griffin concert like Jeffro, seeing as I don’t own any of her albums and had never seen her live. That’s why you won’t see the word “review” in the title of this post. I have to give thanks to Jeff for so graciously offering me the extra ticket to see the concert. Aside from my first time seeing Patty Griffin, it was also my first show at the gorgeous Warner Theater.
Ms. Griffin took the stage after an excellent opening set by Virginia native Scott Miller, whose set was evocative of Shawn Mullins and Springsteen. She began her set with an exquisite French song she said her grandmother sang to her many years ago. While I won’t gush over the quality of her voice as critics and fanboys alike seem to enjoy doing, her singing has a unique and haunting quality to it. Her voice has a tremulous quality that evokes comparisons to the voices of Tim Finn or Jeff Buckley.

Her set ran the gamut from French lullabies to stripped bare folk numbers, to songs where she had the accompaniment of her fine backing band. Stylistically, her songs range from Norah Jones and Emmylou Harris to Patsy Cline and Bonnie Raitt. I know I’m going to be stoned by the Griffin fanboys, but I think she should have stayed in the land of the former two singers and not strayed into musical territory that required a type of voice she does not possess.

Indulge me on a little tangent. In the creative process, I imagine some songwriters write a song with the voice of a performer in mind (whether that voice be his or her own or someone else’s matters not), while others write songs without taking into account the vocal instrument of the singer who will perform the song. In quite a few cases, I thought Patty Griffin’s songs were ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying because she doesn’t have a vocal range similar to that of Cline’s or Raitt’s.
Back to the concert. Heavenly Day is a delightful love song to her dog, and Kite Song, with its vocal progression (and forgive me if I don’t speak in technical musician-speak, as I’ve never claimed to be a musician) reminded me of The Killers. I mentioned to Jeff that I would love to see her cover Mr. Brightside. The crowd was amused that her one attempt at writing a happy song discussed the topic of shoes. Songs like Useless Desires and Trapeze harken back to classic C&W, and Up to the Mountain serves as a fitting tribute to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King.