WAXAHATCHEE
Electric, Bristol - 10th June 2025
Support: Merce Lemon
It's hard to believe that Katie Crutchfield has been making music for fast-approaching 20 years now. Whether as a member of a band (P.S.Eliot, Snocaps), part of a collaboration (including her recent wonderful album with Jess Williamson as Plains) or solo as Waxahatchee, she's delivered some remarkable records. I was super excited to finally be able to catch her live, so I did get my hopes up.
Support came from Pittsburgh singer/songwriter Merce Lemon whose DIY ethic has yielded two full length albums, plus a number of singles and EPs over the past decade or so. She was enjoyable, though not a lot particularly stood out.
Katie came backed with a full band and the set consisted of almost the entirety of her most recent record 'Tigers Blood' (only Bored was absent), and half a dozen songs from its immediate predecessor 'Saint Cloud'. There was nothing from anything earlier. While it would have been nice to have heard a couple of oldies, I'm not going to moan, because the whole thing was perfect as it was.
Having said that, one of the main highlights for me was Problem With It, one of a pair of songs from her Plains project. But Lilacs, Can't Do Much and 365 were equally stunning, as were the two new tracks Much Ado About Nothing and Mud. Electric Bristol was completely full and more than once the audience was bellowing out the songs with Katie.
She may have dropped the loud guitars (for now) and settled for a gorgeous country vibe, but it isn't the first time she's changed direction. Her current sound seems to be getting Waxahatchee's name more widely known and that's most definitely a good thing.
Here's a song from the night itself.
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