10/10/2006
REGINA SPEKTOR
@ SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE
She might have had a plastic barrette in her hair. We might have been in a musty basement in Brooklyn somewhere. It could be Thanksgiving. Her mother could have said, everyone listen, Regina go to the piano, everyone look at what Regina can do. She was shy. She was a redhead with a bra strap that wouldn’t stay put and kept working its way down her arm. And however bored we all are with the pointing out she was born in Moscow, she was most definitely a creature from behind the iron curtain. She crosses easily into Russian when she sings ‘Apres Moi’ and for a moment you don’t even realise she’s switched. Because she straddles her own disparate parts so seamlessly. There is something unfamiliar and unwestern about her, and at the same time something unnervingly close to the bone, as she clicks her tongue and makes the funny noises and claps and taps that feel like a bit of a human common denominator. It’s time for perestroika, people, her performance suggests. And that means you too. It’s time to open up and get in touch with the range of emotions and expressions that are available to us. We knew how to be honest when we were younger, so what’s happened to us now? She paints pictures with her lyrics enough to moot the idea of needing backup dancers or fancy costumes or flashy props. And with a venue as pretty as the Empire (“this is such a nice place,” she says), it’s great to have simple staging. Girl and piano, with a mirrorball, to begin with. At one point there were lights like bubbles everywhere, floating us through some light, snappy number. And when she got very confessional the lights went red and you had an instant velvet box. The audience didn’t seem to mind playing priest to her. She got up to play her pastel guitar and told us about finding a dead bird, someone’s overdoses and being broke, having to bum off friends. Her words are wonky and honest, like a 14-year-old’s conversation over a surreptitious fag on the playground. You can’t help making her music about you. As I left the venue I thought, where is he? I might forget about him now. Or I might get on train tomorrow and chase him down, whether he notices or not. As she says, there’s nothing like emptying a cartridge at the sun.
Words: Heather Deland
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