Lakeshore Theatre is a good place to see a quiet concert, a sit-down venue where people actually pay attention to the music and refrain from yapping. It was the perfect place to see Keren Ann on Friday (June 8). Is it a cliche to call her a chanteuse? Well, she does sing sometimes in French, so it seems appropriate to me. I’m not that familiar with her music – I’ve failed to keep up on all of her releases – but I thought she came across really well in concert, playing with just a guitarist and trumpeter as her backup band. Most of the music was in a low-key hush, but Keren Ann and her musical companions occasionally rocked a little. For her encore, she did two cool covers, the country classic “Tennessee Waltz” and Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi.”
Opening act Jason Hart played meandering, pretentious songs that straddled the line between smooth jazz and prog rock.
Photo notes: It was a fairly dim show, and it was hard to get a good clear shot of Keren Ann without disrupting the mellow mood in the theater, so I’m not terribly excited with the photos I got. Nothing is as sharp as I’d liked it to be.