Joan As Police Woman – Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London 09/09/2011

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Entering the upper, seated level of the Shepherd’s Bush Empire tonight, there’s two things which immediately stand out as a little odd. Firstly, although we are somewhat late, there’s no shortage of seats to choose from – it could be fuller here, and secondly, a noticeable number of the seats which are full are occupied by people who seem to be here alone, and there’s not that many people at the bar who could be about to come back and keep them company either.

Nevertheless, Joan Wasser, aka Joan as Policewoman, strides on to the stage, confident, and dressed in striking red trousers, red shirt and red waistcoat, her dark hair falling over her shoulders. (There’s some very inappropriate jokes which could be made here, but that can be left to your own twisted imaginations.)

The trio launch into their set, Wasser’s voice sliding from low reverberant tones into impressively heights in ‘To Be Loved’, and floating through ‘Kiss The Specifics’, but somehow, although the voice is impressive, it doesn’t fill the room with all the resonance and power that you might have hoped for, and apart from the voice, there’s not a whole lot going on here to grab the attention. Fascinatingly high harmonies from Wasser’s band mates are unexpectedly accomplished, but after the first couple of songs, they come to be expected, and they too fail to make the performance all that engaging.

In between songs, though, it’s clear that much of this crowd feels differently, with impassioned shouts of “We love you Joan!” coming not from thirteen year old girls bestowing their fickle affections, but from middle aged men, who probably should know better. The lady loves it, though, giggling back at the crowd as if she’s flirting with a man she knows she’ll be taking home tonight. Case in point: when one such middle aged man shouts up “you’re hot” at the stage, then quickly apologizes (realizing, we can only assume, that he really should know better, possibly after an angry shove in the ribs from his wife), the forty-two year-old fans her face and swoons, “No, I like it… You’re making me go the colour of my outfit”.

The show’s also changed with an emotion which you wouldn’t expect from a band who’ve been together for such a long time, and have been touring for this particular album since January. At one point in the set, she dedicates a song to her two band mates, Tyler Wood on synths and Parker Kindred on drums, smothering them in praise and detailing how much they’ve changed her as a person. It’s all rather sweet, until she physically breaks down, apparently in tears, making a visible effort to hold them back. It’s a little bit much, but then, maybe being on the road for all this time has broken down her defenses, rather than strengthened them. Either way, if she wants to break down in tears over how much she loves her band, on stage in front of two thousand people, may not be the best place.

This is all quickly forgotten, though, as the band slide effortlessly through ‘Chemmie’. There’s clearly a vast amount of affection for them from the audience, and those sitting alone at the beginning, and remaining alone now, stare in an apparent haze of emotion down at them. The fans here have a lot invested in the band in seems, and I’m not here to try and devalue that in any way, but behind the raw emotion which we see on stage between songs, much of the performance of the actual music seems a little, well, unremarkable, and just doesn’t come across as powerful, musically, as it does on record.