Review: Natalie Merchant

The iconic pop singer brings the house down at the Santa Barbara Bowl

WORDS Ninette Paloma

Natalie Merchant is clutching the hem of her pleated dress, spinning around the stage with adolescent abandon to a chorus of strings and percussion. Her red overcoat flutters absently in the light, and after a few mesmerizing minutes of expressive hands framing waves of flowing silver hair, Merchant pauses to consider the audience before her.
“That’s the end, Santa Barbara, of the very beginning.” 

Over the next two and a half hours, Merchant will light up the Santa Barbara Bowl with her trademark grace and infectious lyrics, pulling songs from a catalogue of solo albums that will captivate even as they break your heart. She will pepper her transitions with musings about the weather and touring anecdotes and spirited movement that will draw you into her hypnotic world as the full moon begins to rise over the city. The title track from 2001’s Motherland will melt over the hushed crowd like a warm embrace, and when she lands on the single “Tell Yourself”, she will burst into tears with such honesty, nearly everyone in Section M will rub their eyes in solidarity. The classic “Ophelia” will begin in a crystalline pitch before darkening with urgency; a mighty Warbler thrashing around in Merchant’s throat before pushing its way out and into the cool, evening air.    

It is hard to believe it’s been over 30 years since Merchant left indie darling band 10,000 Maniacs to launch a solo career that has produced nine studio albums to date- five of them holding top 40 positions on U.S. charts alone. Even more unsettling is the fact that just four years ago and a spinal disease diagnosis later, Merchant was faced with the very real possibility that her severely damaged vocal chords would bring her singing career to an end.
 
To see her on stage now, radiating all the wisdom of a 60-year-old woman who has lived through many truths, is to remember why her music continues to enthrall concertgoers over four decades later. Whether she is waxing lyrical about domestic abuse or literary figures or unrequited love, Merchant’s earnestness blazes across her chest, burns through her words, gathering strength with every twirl of her hips. Each song summons the resiliency of all the ordinary and behemoth figures woven abstractly through her music: the Joan of Arcs and mothers and Aphrodites of the world that laid their convictions bare in pursuit of something larger than themselves. 
There in the center of it all, barefoot and in her boyfriend’s trench coat stands Merchant, kind and generous. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you.