Cate Le Bon played ‘Crab Day’ with BANANA at Bowery Ballroom (review, pics, setlist); adds NYC date to May tour
Cate Le Bon's new album Crab Day is out this week (4/15) and Monday night (4/11) she played it in full at Bowery Ballroom. It was the last of her special release shows with five-piece backing band BANANA that includes frequent bandmates H. Hawkline and Stephen Black (aka Sweet Baboo), plus Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa, current Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Joshua Klinghoffer, and Josiah Steinbrick who produced the album. It really was a special show, beginning with an improvisational BANANA set that included Cate and the band switching instruments (that included two marimbas) between pieces.
The band left the stage and soon a projection screen was lowered on which they showed 11-minute short "Crab Day." Made in Berlin last year with director Phil Collins (no, not from Genesis), it's an odd, beatifully shot art film with Cate and a variety and dancers performing to instrumental portions of the new album. It is weird, funny, engaging and very Cate Le Bon, and you can watch it below.
When the film finished, the band, all wearing straw hats, came back out to play the album in full. Crab Day is by far her most jagged, skronky record yet and, appropriately, had Sweet Baboo on a variety of saxophones for most of the set. With this very very talented group of musicians the record really sparked to life, especially on Side 2 numbers like the manic "I'm a Dirty Attic" and closer "What's Not Mine" which finished with the band hammering on a single note for some time. No slight whatsoever to Cate's usual (awesome) drummer Nick Murray (who was standing next to me for much of the show), but Mozgawa was really crushing it and the whole band really seemed zoned in for the whole Crab Day set.
Cate finished the night with three more songs, a lovely piano reworking of Mug Museum's title track, and two more songs off that album, "I Can't Help You" and "Are You With Me Now?" Great, great show.
Cate will be back with her usual backing band next month, a tour which now includes another NYC show: Rough Trade on May 5. Tickets for that show go on sale Wednesday, April 13 at noon. Updated tour dates, plus that "Crab Day" short, and a few more Instagram pics/video from last night's show, below.
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SETLIST Cate Le Bon & BANANA @ Bowery Ballroom, 4/11/2016
~Improvisational set~
Crab Day
Love Is Not Love
Wonderful
Find Me
I'm A Dirty Attic
I Was Born On The Wrong Day
We Might Revolve
Yellow Blinds, Cream Shadows
How Do You Know?
What's Not Mine
Encore:
Mug Museum
I Can't Help You
Are You With Me Now?
Cate Le Bon - 2016 Tour Dates
05/02 Toronto ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
05/03 Allston MA @ Brighton Music Hall
05/04 Providence RI @ Fete Lounge
05/05 NYC @ Rough Trade
05/06 Philadelphia PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
05/07 Washington DC @ Rock and Roll Hotel
05/08 Columbus OH @ Big Room Bar
05/09 Chicago IL @ Scubas
05/10 Minneapolis MN @ Cedar Cultural Centre
05/12 Vancouver BC @ The Cobalt
05/13 Seattle WA @ Barboza
05/14 Portland OR @ Dante’s
05/16 San Francisco CA @ The Chapel