By: David Rachac
It’s been a tremendous year of changes for the members of the Australian folk band The Waifs -- Donna Simpson and her husband (local folk guitarist Ben Weaver) settled in the Twin Cities and had a baby, Vikki Simpson and her husband also had a baby, and Josh Cunningham played guitar with Missy Higgins on her many tours across the States. So with a four-week tour of the US and Canada starting in a couple of weeks and very little time to shake the rust off, the Waifs played a quietly promoted show at the Turf Club just to get their mojo working again.
If this show was any indication, the year off has taken the Waifs in a significantly more rootsy direction than the rollicking folk they’ve played in the past. The first song (“Blow Your Big House Down”) had some serious blues harp from Vikki over Cunningham’s electric guitar, and “Memory Of My Sweetest Dream” had a '50s blues swing to it. Donna’s lead vocal in the acoustic “Vermillion” (with the killer intro line “It don’t get much worse than winter in South Dakota”) might have been closest to what I was expecting a new Waifs song to sound like, but it was followed-up by another bluesy number (“Sweet Everlasting Love”), this time with Vikki playing acoustic and singing lead.
Five songs in, I had heard only one that I knew (“Lighthouse”) and three electric blues-based numbers that really changed my perceptions of what the Waifs were all about. Sure, they were a little loose, and spent some time trying to remember chords and where to put capos, but considering they had just started practicing together again, all of the songs sounded focused and full of energy. They played two older songs, including “Highway One,” which had a tremendous acoustic guitar solo by Cunningham, before Cunningham broke out the banjo to play “Four Walls.”
Vikki followed with a song done a cappella that was haunting; she spit out the refrain of “You just be bones now” and followed it with a wicked blues-harp solo. She then traded vocal leads with Cunningham on a self-described “June and Johnny Cash song,” and followed it with “Feeling Sentimental,” which had a '40s swing feel to it and featured Cunningham on ukulele(!). They finished their set in full harmony with the electric “Pony,” repeating the chorus of “I wanna get on my pony and ride/I wanna get on my high horse and ride” gleefully.
They came back with Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” for an encore, in an acoustic style that was in line with what I had initially expected. But there is no doubt about it – this is not the Waifs that I thought I knew. A year of change has brought a gritty transformation to the band and given them the opportunity to branch out musically, all of which I found fascinating to take in live.
Set List (Many titles are approximate, since many of the songs are as of yet unreleased):
Blow Your Big House Down
Memory Of My Sweetest Dream
Lighthouse
Vermillion
Sweet Everlasting Love
Bridal Train
Highway One
Four Walls (Cold Chisel cover)
Bones
Like I Loved Her Then
Feeling Sentimental
Pony
Encore:
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Dylan cover)
Location Info:
The Turf Club
Artist Info: The Waifs
Share this story:
Article comments powered by Disqus