A Night of Soul and Spirits: Cat Power revisits The Greatest at Theatre Beanfield

I was probably the youngest person in the crowd at Theatre Beanfield on July 27th, where Cat Power revisited her 2006 album: The Greatest. It was her Montréal stop on a tour celebrating 20 years since the release of an album that helped cement the 2000s as such a rich decade of twee indie and alternative rock. The Greatest stands out, at the time of its release and still 20 years later, because of Cat Power’s somewhat surprising but very natural-feeling turn to soul.  

Born in 2005, with an alternative-music-loving, former-Montréal-transplant father, I heard The Greatest a lot growing up. Cat Power, née Chan Marshall, was one of the voices I turned to, alongside Joni Mitchell, Neko Case, and Feist, in my first year of university when I missed waking up to the gloomy sky of Victoria and the sound of a record already playing downstairs. I still find myself drawn to The Greatest on a rainy day, knowing the croon of Marshall’s voice will provide much needed comfort and introspection. Despite its sometimes quite heavy lyrics and sentiments of heartbreak, the Memphis-inspired sound on the album makes it very accessible, like a cozy sweater and cup of hot tea with honey.  

I’m very happy to report that Marshall’s thick, bluesy voice was equally, if not more special in person. She began the show by stumbling through some lines of French, managing a “Hello.. Bonjour! Euhhhh … je suis.. Euhh contente ..” before turning to her drummer for help. Later in the night she tried to explain her return to this album and how it felt to play it again, saying, “L’album… pffft. … It’s all the same shit man!” which I found incredibly endearing. 

Marshall flaunted a beautiful and intimate performance of The Greatest from front to back. It was amazing to hear live. While some of the songs remained true to the recordings, she put a different spin on others. “Could We” took on more concentrated guitar, reminiscent of both Lucinda Williams and 90s mellow alt-rock at its peak. She used a futuristic auto-tune vocal effect on “The Moon”, transposing the track from 2006 to 2026. After running through The Greatest’s 12 tracks and a bathroom break, Marshall jumped into a couple tracks from 2003’s You Are Free, but mostly a mix of covers, which she has seemed to focus on in the latter half of her career (from 2000’s Covers, 2008’s Jukebox, and 2023’s Cat Power Sings Dylan). My favourite moment in this encore-of-sorts was her introduction to “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” where she shared that her late grandmother used to play that song on the piano and would say it “goes out to all the bad bitches… bad, bad, bad”.  

By the end of her concert, it felt like Cat Power had transformed Theatre Beanfield into a place of worship. Before playing her last track, she spoke of the importance of letting yourself welcome the spirits around you, and the connection between honouring the past and creating a new future. When she sang, she would often take a step back and sing into a hand cupped to her mouth, creating a beautiful echo to her voice. It seemed suddenly obvious that the spirits were around us, and that the audience was basking in a 20 year journey between soul, the south, and the sands of time.  

Ingrid is the host of Bikini Brrroadcast every Tuesday from 6-7pm, where you can hear angels of noise; women-led alt-rock, indietronica, twee-pop, riot grrl or the favourite songs of the coolest most beautiful girl you know probably.