“I’m kind of tired so if you guys want to keep singing, that’s fine with me.”
That’s what Carol Ades told the 400 or so fans crowded into Washington DC’s Atlantis on Thursday night after they basically sang every word of her opening number “Worst Person in the World.” Of course, if you’ve ever been to a Carol Ades’ show, you know the phrase “kind of tired” doesn’t really exist.
After a brisk 80 minutes and 20 songs, no one seemed the least bit tired.
Ades first stepped into the public eye 13 years ago during season five of The Voice. At that point, she went by Caroline Pennell and was 17 years old. She made it into the final eight. Along the way, she performed songs by the likes of Florence and the Machine, Ellie Goulding and a very sweet version of the White Stripes' “We’re Going to Be Friends.”
Thirteen years later, Ades is no longer doing covers. She has plenty of her own songs to fill a set list.
Carol Ades brings the drama to DC’s Atlantis
It would be easy to lump Ades in with a large group current young female pop stars, all with big voices and emotional transparency. But having recently read an interview in which Ades lamented the way comparison can limit an artist's potential, I’ll refrain.
Besides, hearing her highly theatrical, comedic and musically eclectic tastes does not put me in mind of today’s major pop stars as much as it does more diverse artists like Nellie McKay or Jill Sobule.
There, I said I wasn’t going to offer comparison and I immediately went in another direction. That is kind of like what Carol Ades pulls off many of her songs.
They tend to start intimate and build to huge hooky choruses. There’s nothing particularly new about that. It’s a common pop structure. Ades transcends the template for two reasons. First, she simply does it very well. She has no bad songs.
Second, she writes some of the sharpest, wittiest lyrics in modern pop.
Those lyrics deal with the dual desire to be famous and to experience the simple pleasures of life. It is a life where the little things are blown up to be big – like her dress and her haircut, both of which she vamped about during equipment repair – but clear-eyed reality is always lurking to put things in perspective.
Nowhere was this dichotomy more clear than in the middle of the show with the one-two punch of “Special” and “Normal Feelings.”
“I’m a me girl
I’m a leave your misery at the seat, girl
I’m a touch me once and I'm weak in the knees girl
And I don’t need more than what I want”
"Special" eschews the big power chorus for a more vulnerable desire to feel, well, special, and it had the crowd waving their phone lights like so many lighters at a folk festival.
Then “Normal Feelings” flips the script, but not before opening with…
“Dating boys with heroin addictions
Dad I’m gonna be an independent musician.
Then it was right back to pristine pop rock of “Good Swimmer." Ably supported by Jake Chatelain on drums and Maddie Eliasson on both acoustic and electric guitar, Ades was non-stop motion, dancing all around the stage, inviting a couple of fans up to join her for some positive vibes on “Turns Out I’m Amazing,” and generally keeping the crowd revved all night long.
She blew through an early mic failure and Eliasson’s guitar feedback almost as if they were part of plan. They weren’t, but Ades does seem to thrive on chaos, so ... maybe? As she noted before launching into “Familiar Hell,” “I’d rather have a familiar hell than an uncertain heaven.”
She closed the night with the big power pop of “Late Start” and “Dreams” before encoring with two more crowd pleasers – “Sadtown, USA” and “That’s My Girl,” dedicated to Eliasson. The crowd knew every word.
New York based singer-songwriter Julip opened the show with a 30-minute set, and then got the rarest of honors – an opening act encore. Julip engages in plenty of playback technology to bolster her voice and guitar, but avoids the common mistake of spending more time with her knobs and pedals than with her audience.
She has good songs and a very engaging personality that had several fans begging for that encore. At first she declined, but when the soundman gave her the thumbs-up, she acquiesced. She did wonder however, how the fans knew to ask for “Lobotomy,” the least-streamed song she has released.
With an opening lyric “Lou Reed, are you watching over me?” – I’d be inclined to add that one to the regular set list.
Carol Ades has no immediate touring plans announced. With the energy she expends during a show, she could probably use some down time. But I imagine she will be back at it soon, probably playing bigger clubs. She may have gotten a late start (the title of her first feature album) or indeed be the worst person in the world (the title of her newest EP), but she is also clearly a star in the making.
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