The Wreckers Live!

The Wreckers
Joe’s, Chicago
Monday, August 7, 2006

I wasn’t aware this show was acoustic until I arrived at Joe’s and saw the room half full of tables taking up the usual standing room. It was a welcome surprise, though, since The Wreckers’ record is an organic, country-tinted slice of Americana, obviously written on acoustic guitars. So taking their songs down to the literal root would be just fine. And indeed it was.

Michelle Branch and Jessica Harp met five years ago, and Branch invited Harp to join her as a back-up singer on tour. The two wrote songs together in their down time, recording their first song, “Good Kind,” then performing it on WB teen drama “One Tree Hill” last year.

The two are a match made in musical heaven, as their voices are nearly pitch-perfect mirrors of each other, making for some seamless harmonizing. So when Branch was ending her last solo tour, she was ready for something new and she thought the songs she and Harp were writing were something special. Fast forward to this spring, when Maverick released Stand Still, Look Pretty. The single, “Leave The Pieces,” is fifth on the Billboard country radio chart.

This show was apparently a special promo through US99, which meant about half the crowd had won their tickets (probably the half seated at tables, yapping their jaws off as if they were at a goddamned picnic), and which likely explains the acoustic format; joining Branch and Harp at Joe’s were an electric guitarist, a fiddle/mandolin player, and Branch’s husband and bass player, Teddy Landau.

These two young women are natural beauties, and physical polar opposites — Branch being a brown-eyed brunette, and Harp being a blue-eyed blonde, but as Branch has said, they seem like sisters, cut from the same cloth in every way, especially in their songwriting and performing styles. Branch brings the pop, and Harp brings the country, and when they meet in the middle, what they write is gold.

They started with “Cigarettes,” an impassioned post-heartbreak song penned by Harp in which she insists, probably through a wave of defiant tears, “Someday maybe somebody will love me like I need/Someday I won’t have to prove it, somebody will see.” This song is a perfect example of the fence The Wreckers straddle — it has a hint of country phrasing, but the melody, especially in the chorus, is pure Hot AC.

As the short set rolled on, the notion of what constitutes “country” from everything else became clear: the presence of a fiddle and the twang of a Fender can turn just about any guitar-based song into a country song. While the LP mostly leans somber Americana, songs like “Tennessee” and “Way Back Home” became more country during this show, as they focused on the girls’ acoustic guitar strums and were dappled with fiddle or mandolin. They showcased two new songs, “Damn That Radio” and “Different Truck” (“same loser . . .”) both rockin’ honky tonk tunes written in a more traditional country style than those on their debut LP.

The yappers finally looked toward the stage when they started their hit single, “Leave The Pieces,” which had the whole room singing along (leaving me wondering if I was the only one there who has listened to the whole LP . . .) After playing only eight songs, they stepped offstage, then came back for two encores: the haunting and reflective “Stand Still, Look Pretty” (the only tune Branch sang lead on during this show) and then a stellar rendition of Deana Carter’s “Strawberry Wine.”

Though some have questioned the country marketing direction The Wreckers have chosen, Branch and Harp proved this night they’re no bluebloods.

— Penelope Biver

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly