Kathleen Edwards at Islington Assembly Hall
Kathleen Edwards
Islington Assembly Hall, 12 September 2024
I know Craig Finn was the headliner here but for me it was all about seeing Kathleen Edwards again, back in the UK for the first time in 12 years! It was fantastic to finally see her after so long, I only wish her set had been longer.
I've been to Islington Assembly Hall many times but this is the first time I've ever been to a seated gig here. I actually paid a little more to get a reserved seat in the front row (only the first two were reserved seating apparently) but it was worth it knowing I had a guaranteed place and an unobstructed view. That said, the stage in the hall is quite high, so it didn't feel quite as intimate as I'd have liked but it's a small grumble, and it was nice to sit for once at a gig (the, on the whole, older male audience probably was happy about that too).
My entire reason for coming to the show was to finally see Kathleen Edwards play live today, even though tonight she was merely billed as "Special Guest" to headliner Craig Finn (frontman of The Hold Steady, who I actually saw live a couple of times years ago). Funnily enough the last time she played London was nearby in the similarly named Islington Academy and not long after that, Edwards quit the business, returned home to Canada, bought a coffee shop (amusingly called Quitters) and happily ran it for a number of years. 
Luckily for us, the lure proved too much and when she asked by Maren Morris to write a song for her album Girl (thank you Maren), Edwards found herself writing music again, resulting in the 2020 album Total Freedom (my favourite album of that year!). But while she has been playing in Canada and the US, she hasn't ventured onto these shores for years so I certainly appreciate that Finn has taken her on this tour and managed to get her to us at long last.
That said, I don't think I've ever been to a show where I felt so strongly that the billing should have been reversed. So many of the audience appeared to be there just for her and quite a few left after her set or during Finn's set. I must admit, it was only the promise of seeing Kathleen joining Finn on a song that kept me from doing the same, but it definitely felt like Finn's set would have worked better as the shorter opening act and Edwards, with her rich five albums worth of brilliant material, would have been a fantastic and deserving headliner.
Edwards took to the stage looking like she hasn't aged a day since the last time I saw her live in 2012, her hair a halo of curls and wearing a strapless dress over black trousers, and quietly launched into Asking For Flowers. I really couldn't have asked for a better opening track, as the album it comes from (also called Asking For Flowers), is my favourite Kathleen Edwards album so straight away I felt at home in her music.
She tells us that the last time she was in London she was not in a good place and even told her record company they could "fuck themselves" at the last show she did here (I must admit I don't remember that part but she may well have been pissed off: it made for a great show no doubt!). Tonight she seems much more relaxed and in a great mood. Maybe being the opening act takes the pressure off but it's clear so many of the audience is here for her. Someone even shouts that it's been 12 years since she was here last, it's clear she was much missed.
She tells how the next song, Empty Threat, when it was written was about something, as a Canadian, she thought she would never do "moving to America" hence the title, but now she's living in Florida and she really has fulfilled that chorus! It was great to hear it, as it was definitely a highlight of her previous album Voyager (the one she made before she briefly quit!).
She then told a story about her bureaucrat father, who wanted her to have a more stable job that had pension benefits (but he himself never wanted to retire), who now spends his time planting spectacular trees on his farm in Canada. Edwards, got a puny cutting of catalpa tree from a neighbour, which her dad reluctantly said she could plant among his more exotic specimens.
Yet now, it's the most impressive tree of them all, and one she teases her dad about all the time. She tells the story as it's mentioned in the next song, a tearjerker of a tune if there ever was one and she admits it makes grown men cry, because it's about a dog who is now buried underneath that catalpa tree. What a treat and how moving to hear one of the highlights from Total Freedom, Who Rescued Who, especially as a dog lover myself. Any song that pays tribute to the greatness of dogs will always be special to me but this song is especially moving.
She then reveals that she is working on a new album with none other than Jason Isbell in Nashville and will return there to continue when the tour is over. We are then treated to a new song that is going to be on that album, which she tells us is about a dear friend of hers, the bassist from her band who moved to LA, and she wrote it as a way to wish him well. Apparently when he heard it, he rang her saying he was in tears, sitting in a store parking lot, listening to it but then not long after repaid her by quitting the band ("don't worry, we are still buds" she laughed). The song is called, she says, The Leafs Still Suck, referencing the ice hockey team the Toronto Maple Leafs, which I assume is his favourite team, and indeed near the end she did sing that line, but despite the jokey title, the song itself was wonderfully heartfelt and moving, the opposite of its title in fact.
At this point she kept looking at her watch, so it was clear her time was coming to a close but she went out on a bang, with one of her earliest singles, Six O'Clock News, and she left the stage leaving us all wanting more and earning her a standing ovation. She was definitely headliner worthy and I can't wait until she comes back and does a longer show.
Many years ago my friend Dan introduced me to The Hold Steady when the acclaimed Boys And Girls In America album came out, and we went to see a particularly joyous and rowdy show at the tiny Hoxton Bar & Grill, that left us thrilled and grinning. It was the only time when a band has ever played a song I requested (Dan helpfully aided me in shouting the title), when they played Stevie Nix (of course!), so it's a special memory for me.
Craig, looking like a documentary filmmaker, in a suit, t-shirt and baseball cap, began the set with a new song called Fletchers which was essentially a spoken word affair, with a story told over some guitar picking.
He soon got to singing though and the next song, The Amarillo Kid, got a lot of cheers, so it's obviously a fan favourite. Every song came with a story and to me it sounded a bit scripted, which was confirmed to me by someone who had been to multiple shows, that it was all the same stories he told every night. Obviously that is more than fine as most people will only go to one and every story led into a song, but it definitely felt like more of a performance that the natural off-the-cuff storytelling of Edwards (she's also apparently been playing a different set every night, which is lovely for anyone seeing more than one show and I also appreciate that I might be seeing a unique setlist tonight).
The only song I recognised was Certain Songs, which is from The Hold Steady's debut album Almost Killed Me, which I appreciated but the rest of the set was from his five solo albums (I had no clue he had released so many!) It would have been nice to hear a couple more Hold Steady songs though. 
He had a structure to his storytelling, which came from a comedian that he recently had on his podcast (it feels like everyone and their dog has a podcast these days), who was advising him on his performance, telling him to tell the audience "who you are" (which led to a rambling story about his early years before forming the band), then to tell them "who they are" (which he pointed out the thing that connects us here tonight is our love of music), then to tell about your past, which led to more stories about moving from Minneapolis to New York. He also told a story about a woman who was in one of the towers on 9/11 who ignored instructions to stay put and made a run for it and managed to escaped the tower before it fell. He met her years later at a party "and we are still together."
Another song was about his sister and her daughter, that felt quite raw and brutally honest about their struggles and I wondered how they felt about it.
I was holding on though for the guest appearance of Kathleen Edwards and earlier during her set, she told how she had met Finn at a Songwriter's Circle at a festival (I think, I'm a little hazy here) and he had played a song called Shamrock that had completely bowled her over. That's the song she joins him on tonight and it was definitely nice to hear them sing together although I didn't feel similarly bowled over by the song. Apparently she sings on Finn's forthcoming album so I guess it's nice they are friends.
Thankfully for me, Finn decided to just go straight into the encore and sang a song called This Is What It Looks Like, but really I wish he had ended it on the song with Edwards.
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