Concert Review/Photos: EMA @ Boot & Saddle
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
"Is it too dark? The lighting I mean, not the music."
[ 10/4 ] A couple of songs into EMA’s set, she quipped, “Is it too dark? The lighting I mean, not the music.” The crowd laughed not just with appreciation, but with something akin to relief. Erika M. Anderson cuts an imposing figure: tall, lanky, Nordic. And her stage presence is just as striking. She immediately injected a strange tension into the room, a sense of expectation, a pleasurable unease about what she might do. The joke was a wink at her audience, a token of generosity. We spent the rest of night eating out of her hand.
Along with her versatile band, she played songs from both Past Life Martyred Saints and The Future’s Void, delivering hammering takes of “Neuromancer” and “Satellites,” turning confrontational on “California,” phasing to spectral on “Marked” and “3jane.” Anderson is a livewire vocalist capable of searing intensity or delicate sensitivity, a sort of blues singer for the cyber age.
And she seems almost at war with herself; at one moment, every inch the performer, striking guitar hero poses, breaking into a smile, elaborately wrapping the cord of her microphone around her like she was about to start an aerial silk act. But the next moment she would be withdrawn into herself entirely, huddled on her knees, or playing with her back turned, or clutching at the microphone wire like this time she wanted to strangle herself with it, or yank the thing out of its socket and then trash the whole stage.
She closed the set with “Dead Celebrity,” during which she descended the stage and began clasping hands with audience members, who responded as if they were receiving a sacrament.
With everyone clamoring for one more song, Anderson returned to the stage and after consulting with her bandmates, performed a desolate rendition of her former band Gowns’ “Cherrylee” alone on guitar. “You’ve gotta keep on walking, you’ll forget about me,” she sang. If you were there, you know that’s not likely.
