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While her new boyfriend/producer Justin Vernon was preparing to make his "Saturday Night Live" debut with Bon Iver on Saturday, Kathleen Edwards was working another sold-out crowd at the Rex Theater.

"SNL" ought to look her up sometime, because Kittythefool, as fans know her on Twitter, is the one with the range.

Case in point was "A Soft Place to Land." For that one the Canadian singer-songwriter had her electric guitar strapped on but she started the melancholy ballad playing beautifully on violin. As it heated up she rocked out the finish on guitar. Don't think I've ever seen a musician holding both instruments at once before.

Edwards is touring on her fourth album, "Voyageur," which reflects the sadness and intensity of her divorce from former guitarist Colin Cripps.

Introducing the heartbreaking "Pink Champagne," she admitted to the quiet, seated crowd that she regrets making an album that "invites everyone into my personal therapy session." It requires her to get on stage night after night with songs like that and "House Full of Empty Rooms," a title speaks for itself.

While most of the new material is hardly upbeat, it's not Kittythefool's style to get up there and bum people out. She mixed things up with driving rockers: the Petty-style "Back to Me," the desperate, bullet-riddled "Six O'Clock News," her fiery new single "Change the Sheets" and "Goodnight California," a song that climaxed with a Crazy Horse-like jam.

Of course, it's not a Kathleen Edwards show without hockey songs and they might have been the highlight of the set. She did a stunning solo version of "Hockey Skates" that showed off the purity and tenderness of her voice. Later she rocked through "I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory," a song that references Wayne Gretzky and his enforcer Marty McSorley. In Pittsburgh she seamlessly inserted a nod to "the great Sidney Crosby."

 

SET LIST

1. Empty Threat

2. Chameleon/Comedian

3. Sidecar

4. Asking for Flowers

5. Pink Champagne

6. In State

7. A Soft Place to Land

8. Mint

9. Hockey Skates (solo)

10. House Full of Empty Rooms

11. I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory

12. Back to Me

13. Goodnight California

14. Change the Sheets

Encore

15. Six O'Clock News

16. September Gurls

 

 

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