If Waxahatchee’s mid-May show at the Hollywood Palladium was your first introduction to the band, you might’ve come away thinking that Katie Crutchfield and company simply appeared on the music scene in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. After all, every song on the setlist—save for the cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Something About What Happens When We Talk”—was pulled from an album released since 2021.
There were eight tracks from 2021’s Saint Cloud, including the indie-infused “Oxbow”, the country-tinged “Can’t Do Much”, and the harmonious “Fire” that closed out the show. Every song on 2024’s Tigers Blood earned a slot, chief among them the Waxahatchee breakthrough hit “Right Back to It”—albeit without the now-signature accompaniment of MJ Lenderman. Even Plains, Katie’s side project with singer-songwriter Jess Williamson, scored three “covers” from 2022’s I Walked With You A Ways: “Problem With It”, “Line of Sight”, and “Hurricane”.
In truth, Waxahatchee—named after a creek in Katie’s home state of Alabama—has existed in some form or fashion since 2011. She released four albums under that moniker prior to 2020, most notably 2013’s Cerulean Salt, which first put her on the sonic map. Take a jaunt through that catalog, and it’s easy to see why this split seems to exist in Waxahatchee’s oeuvre. Not that there’s anything wrong with Katie’s previous work as Waxahatchee, per se. Her prior albums are all strong, well-written alternative-indie records that are worth deep dives in their own right.
Her newer works, on the other hand, fit more firmly onto the country-folk side of the indie spectrum that she now occupies. And with so many artists—including Beyoncé and Lana Del Rey—looking to make their mark in that realm, it’s only fitting that a singer-songwriter from the Deep South would stake her claim to such fertile territory.
Perhaps it just took Katie some time to warm up to that side of herself as an artist, so as to lean further into it. That much seemed to peek through her performance at the Palladium.
She started off the show with a softer, more staid onstage persona. Katie opened the show singing “3 Sisters” with a “KC” hat on—a nod to her current residence in Kansas City, which has brought with it fandom of the Super Bowl champion Chiefs. By the time she and her band, which included Jeff Tweedy‘s son Spencer on drums, broke into “Evil Spawn”, Katie had ditched the headwear. By the second half of the set, with songs like “Witches” and “Crowbar,” she began stepping off her lightbulb-rimmed platform to traipse the stage, engaging the crowd on either side.
Granted, Katie didn’t exactly transform into Alanis Morissette or Florence Welch in that regard by the time the show ended. But she did, in real-time, appear to bloom from a relative wallflower into a full-blown performer, which, as it happens, comes as a fitting evolution for Waxahatchee. After all, Katie’s career has blossomed to an entirely different level in recent years, thanks in no small part to a gentle pivot back toward her roots.
Waxahatchee’s journey, both metaphorically and geographically, will continue on along with this tour in support of Tigers Blood. Katie and her band will wrap up the first North American leg of their tour with stops in Salt Lake City and Colorado in the lead-up to Memorial Day Weekend, before taking their act to Europe and the United Kingdom through July and into August. Come mid-August, they’ll pop back into Canada en route to a slew of shows across the U.S. that runs until early September. Visit the band’s website for tickets and a complete list of tour dates.
Check out a gallery of images from Waxahatchee at the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday courtesy of photographer Josh Martin along with some fan-shot videos from Cabrit.
Waxahatchee — “Something About What Happens When We Talk” (Lucinda Williams) — 5/16/24
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