Katrina (ex-Katrina and the Waves) at Amsterdam Bar and Hall, St. Paul (04 April 2015)
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poster
Setlist
Tour Dates
05/09/15 Unknown Venue Munich, Germany
05/15/15 Pontins Camber Sands Holiday Park Camber 05/16/15 Bluebell Hotel Bridlington 05/21/15 Unknown Venue Gothenburg, Sweden 05/22/15 Ericsson Globe Arena Stockholm, Sweden 05/24/15 Zdf Fernsehgarten Mainz, Germany 05/25/15 Northampton Party At The Gardens 07/17/15 – 07/19/15 TBA Festival 2015 Laško 07/25/15 Kragero Resort Kragerø, Norway 08/08/15Rewind North 2015 Macclesfield 09/13/15 Reload-Festival 2015 Costessey 09/19/15 Scarborough 09/26/15 Rye 10/04/15 Campbell Park Milton Keynes 10/10/15 Walthamstow Read More
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Katrina Leskanich recently wrapped her 2015 North American Blisland Tour with a performance at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St. Paul. Don’t recognize the name? – maybe if we said it was Katrina from Katrina and the Waves, that would jar some 80’s fond memories.
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Katrina and Jimi K Bones
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The singer is out in support of last fall’s self-released Blisland, and had a very New York City garage rock band with her in tow- Kevin Tooley on drums and two of Joan Jett’s former Blackhearts, Jimi K Bones on guitar and Sean Koos on bass.
For her set, which just ran over an hour, Leskanich and band played many of her 80s favorites as well as introduced most of the mostly baby boomer-aged crowd, to some of her newer solo material. The NYC backing threesome brought a rough and gritty feel to the music, though thankfully most of the older Katrina and the Waves favorites were done as authentically as possible, instead of re-interpreted.
The four-piece charged out of the gate with ‘Rock n Roll Girl’ then ‘Red Wine and Whisky’, the opening track from the Waves’ 1985 self-titled album. “When we first got started…in 1827…The Bangles covered one of our songs”, Leskanich mentioned before going into the early ‘80s jangly classic, ‘Going Down to Liverpool’.
The new ‘Sun Coming Upper’ showcased the still London-based Leskanich’s distinctive vocals and Bones’ rabid guitar playing. Blisland’s ‘Texas Cloud’ was a bluesy stomping song that chugged ahead relentlessly, complete with an Old West-style whistling break, while ‘Scar’ was from a rare import-only self-titled solo album.
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Katrina Leskanich
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‘Walking Where the Roses Grow’ took us back to 1995 and after which, Leskanich mentioned her London tour guide book (written from her dog’s point-of-view called Peggy Lee Loves London) and her experience eating at Mickey’s Diner, before the show.
A revv’d-up cover of Etta James’ ‘Watch Dog’ from 1968 energized the end of the set to be followed immediately and without any fanfare, by the Waves’ biggest hit, ‘Walking on Sunshine’, which was stretched out enough to satisfy everyone waiting to hear it, and to give each musician a little time in the solo spotlight.
Some thirty years later, the song still resonates the joy and abandon it did back in the ‘80s, and the crowd was obviously still loving it. So, it’s a welcome back for Leskanich and band, able to still put a smile on people’s faces, both with the old hits and the newer songs.
And “don’t it feel good”.
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Katrina (ex-Katrina and the Waves) at Amsterdam Bar and Hall, St. Paul (04 April 2015) |