The cry came from the audience about halfway through Courtney Barnett's explosive set Saturday night at Club Dada. Some guy, caught up in the moment, went and cursed the best geriatric rock band in the world. As you might have heard the Stones were in town Saturday as well.
"Are they in town?" the pint-sized Aussie asked from the stage. "You guys missed out on Stones tickets? Well, we're honored you're here instead of there."
Actually the pleasure was ours. Barnett's snarling, nimble missives filled the air around Dada's outdoor stage, a splendid venue that feels like a miniature version of Stubb's in Austin. She played drowsy blues numbers and howling kiss-off rockers, furiously strumming and working her tremolo bar with such ferocity the poor thing fell off and tumbled to the floor. No matter; she just peered through her dark bangs at the sold-out crowd and kept on jamming.
Barnett's debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I just Sit is already one of the year's most thrilling releases, a collection of imagistic free-association yarns sung with gut-level irony and wisdom. The song that broke her big, "Avant Gardener," plays like Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" filtered through a melodic barbiturate haze.
There was nothing remotely enervating about her Saturday set. Playing blistering guitar lines on a guitar that seemed almost as big as her - she's a lefty, which only adds to the visual effect - she delivered one blast of energy after another. Even her more languid songs upped the sonic intensity of their studio versions as she wailed away, occasionally turning her back to the crowd to be alone with her ax.
The show peaked with Barnett's cover of the Breeders' "Cannonball," its cathartic chorus a perfect match for this performer. (Kim Deal would have been proud). But the thematic capstone for this particular evening was the encore performance of the beautifully rambling "History Eraser." In one quick passage Barnett managed to touch on a poetic ancestor and the rock icons playing a few miles away: "I found an Ezra Pound and made a bet that if I found a cigarette, I'd drop it all and marry you/Just then a song comes on: "You Can't Always Get What You Want," the Rolling Stones, or woe is we the irony."
No woe here. Barnett can hold her own any night, regardless of the competition nearby.
