Courtney Barnett Live at National Sawdust (2023-10-12)

Courtney Barnett & Stella Mozgowa present End Of The Day Live

Back in July when Courtney Barnett announced that she would be releasing an instrumental score, End Of The Day to the 2021 documentary, Anonymous Club in September, I have to admit I viewed the news cautiously but still optimistic. Then she announced that she would be doing a limited run of 10 shows in The States, I was of course intrigued. With the additional announcement that these east and west coast shows would take place in significantly smaller venues than Barnett has played since probably 2015, intrigue turned to excitement. I had long given up on the idea of seeing Barnett in a small venue once again after her sellout performance at Radio City Music Hall last year but here she was scheduling 2 shows at one of (if not THE) best sounding rooms in all of New York City, National Sawdust in Williamsburg. Of course these would not be your typical CB shows. Advertised as a two set program, the first being a recreation of End Of The Day and the second being a more traditional mix of her catalog. When End Of The Day was released last month, I gave it a handful of listens and found it to be interestingly enjoyable. Granted it isn’t ever going to be my “go to” Courtney Barnett album, but much like Bob Dylan’s initial foray into movie soundtracks with 1973’s Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, I found the music to be thought provoking yet still quite relaxing.

Thursday night’s show started off with solo artist Anjimile offering up a wonderful opening set of introspective yet humorous folk music. Anjimile who is based out of Durham, NC had quite the affable stage presence and the guitar chops as well as the song material to quite successfully put on a very entertaining opening set. In addition to all of that, he was actually quite funny to boot. Anjimile commented that they’d started the tour last night in Vermont at a beautiful venue but that there was “like only ONE black person. I’m from Durham, NC and we got lots of black people there”. Nonetheless, I do suggest checking Anjimile out if you get the chance. He recently released his second full length LP, King and I certainly recommend giving it a spin.

After a brief break while the stage was prepared, Courntey Barnett along with her collaborator on the End Of The Day project, Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa took to the darkened stage with little fanfare and absolutely no dialog, there being a conspicuous absence of a vocal mic on stage. The two went right into presenting to the packed room a beautiful and inspired live interpretation of what they had created in the studio with End of The Day. I will be the first to admit that for many people who are fans of Barnett’s more traditional music, EOTD might not be their thing. But to hear it performed live in a room such as National Sawdust which is as much a performance space as it it a state of the art sound stage was absolutely mesmerizing. The ambient sounds being traded back and forth between Barnett and Mozgawa was tantalizing. But it was so much more than just the back and forth between the two musicians on stage. The symbiotic nature of how Barnett’s guitar work (replete with the usage of a bow, as well as drum sticks…actually if my naked eyes didn’t lie to me, I think she was actually using a #2 pencil, not a drumstick) melded and melted in and out of Stella’s synthesizer work was a thing of beauty. The textures and layers created by Barnett and Mozgawa presented an ideal soundscape for the documentary footage being projected onto the stage backdrop. One might have been concerned that an entire set of moody, spacey, instrumental music might become boring but the 40 minute presentation went by in a flash and just like that, with nary a word spoken throughout, End Of The Day had reached its conclusion. The two walked off the stage and that was that.

Shortly thereafter Barnett returned to the stage to the delight of the crowd with that more recognizable shy yet bubbly personality. After a brief amount of stage banter to thank everyone for coming out and how good it was to be back, she kicked off what would be an 8 song second set with “Rae Street’ the opener off of 2021’s Things Take Time, Take Time followed by “City Looks Pretty” from 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel which she erroneously introduced with the incorrect title of “Tell Me How You Really Feel”. The next song, “Avant Gardener” might have received the loudest response of the evening when she kicked into it.

She would eventually introduce “Depreston” with an amusing anecdote about how she’d written the song about buying a new house only to find out after the song’s completion that the town which the song’s title is ironically named after, Preston isn’t where the house was located at all. The set would continue on with a couple of more songs from Things Take TIme and Tell Me How You Really Feel. Barnett would return for one encore where she performed a cover of the band Chastity Belt’s “Different Now”. She would note that this was only the second time she’d played the song live (the previous night in VT being the first) and that she had played around the corner (at Music Hall Of Williamsburg) a few years ago when she was touring with Chastity Belt.

All in all, a fantastic evening of new as well as old songs. A wonderful combination of ambient with shambolic, not to mention quiet and peaceful with sardonic and raucous. To get to see Barnett in an up close and personal room once again was an added bonus for sure, but I have no doubt that this evening of music would have worked in a larger concert hall just as easily. What we were witness to however, was the fact that Courtney is more than just a one trick pony with dry witted talking blues stripped down rock songs but also a stellar improviser and composer of thoughtful introspective captivating dreamscapes.