The Blow‘s show at the Black Cat last Thursday was packed. That probably had more to do with Khaela Maricich’s loyal fan base than TNG’s preview…but a guy can dream, right?

I mentioned last week that Khaela was touring without the guy who does her beats and so would be singing alone to recorded tracks. Nervous as I was about that, it ended up being no problem. She acknowledged in the opening minutes that this was going to be a karaoke concert, except the kind of karaoke that she had written herself and doesn’t have to wait in line to perform. And if that isn’t endearing enough, two songs later she was serenading a water bottle.

I’ll explain.

The awesomeness of the show was a result of two things: The Blow’s songs, which you already know I love, and Khaela’s stage persona. Imagine a really cute girl telling you a really cute story, but interrupting it every couple minutes to sing. That’s what the show was like.

After one or two warm-up songs, Khaela took the audience through a course on songwriting. She said you could start with an object, in this case a water bottle, and write a song to it as though it was a boy who didn’t call her. Then she put the bottle on her shoulder and sang “Hey Boy” to it. I promise you this wasn’t annoying.

The show’s highlight came a couple songs later, when Khaela explained that you could tug and pull at the original object/song until it became something entirely new. The song about the boy not calling her was expanded into a song about being dumped, and the water bottle was expanded into a clear plastic tarp hung between two mic stands. The song, by the way, was “Fists Up,” which is definitely my favorite song of the moment.

For a nursery-rhyme like song from the first album, audience members were called on stage and instructed to “freak on each other.” This section also included some on-stage dancing from an adorable little girl in a pink dress who I sincerely hope was the opening act’s daughter.

Many of The Blows songs are about love and dating, and though Khaela never used a gender specific pronoun in her anecdotes, she got a huge cheer from the homo-heavy crowd by announcing that the date was her and her girlfriend’s anniversary.

“Parentheses,” a love song and “True Affection,” a resigned break-up song, rounded out the set and finished up the story. I was a little confused how the puppy love turned so quickly into the veiled kiss-off, but I couldn’t exactly raise my hand and ask. My guess is that these two songs were just two good to bury early in the set and were worth a little break from the chronology.

Any questions were settled at the encore, “Hey Petunia,” which turns The Police’s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” into a song that won’t remind you of your dentist’s waiting room. I left happy.

And Khaela: If you read this, I’m the guy that cornered you by the merchandise table and said I wanted to interview you. It would really make my day if you emailed me.

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