Hotel Cafe Tour Concert Review

Concert Review written for one of my internships.



On Tuesday night, it was the coldest it had been since fall started. I had unfortunately skipped out on coffee earlier due to my lack of money, but as soon as I arrived at Cat’s Cradle for the Hotel Café Tour, I realized I didn’t really need it anyway.

The Hotel Café Tour is probably one of the most appropriately named tours that I have ever attended, but not because of the prevalence of the lineup in coffee shop speakers. A tour with a constantly changing set, the show in Carrboro featured Ingrid Michaelson, Erin McCarley, Thao Nguyen, Meiko and Samantha Crain. The all-women lineup possessed low, husky voices that comparable to rich coffees or lattes. And as the show went on, I realized that even their song choices paralleled the effects of a café drink: the show started off relaxing and finished off with a lively energy.

That night, the performers and the audience, which was composed mostly of women and their significant others, seemed to be a pair of friends visiting their local coffee shop to have a nice chat filled with heart-to-hearts and laughter. Starting conversation off slowly at first, but then building up to amiable chatter. Each performer gave little personal stories that enabled the audience to relate to them on a personal level. By the time Ingrid Michaelson arrived onstage, both the crowd and performers seemed equally comfortable with each other, sharing jokes and jibes. Never having seen Michaelson, I was struck by how humorous she was, as she kept the crowd in a constant state of laughter.

“Her name is Dolores,” Michaelson said that night, introducing her cracked Ukelele. “I named her that because it rhymes with…” she said trailing off, leaving the crowd to complete her sexual innuendo.

Although all the women had deliciously sultry voices, Thao Nguyen and Samanth Crain’s performances were particularly note worthy. Nguyen possessed an incredible amount of stage presence despite her petite frame and the fact that the show was her first performance on tour. She moved to her music and shook around on stage in a way that can only be described as endearing.

Crain, a relatively new addition to the music scene, impressed the crowd through her mesmerizingly soulful voice. Crain’s ability to express emotions and make songs her own was fully demonstrated through her cover of Radiohead’s Creep. Crain sang the song with so much powerful and full-bodied emotion that the crowd, which had previously been a little antsy for Michaelson to take the stage, quieted and fell into the spell of Crain’s voice.

I would take another show off this tour instead of coffee anyday.