Over the Rhine with Katie Herzig

It’s not a blonde girl’s world. Blossoming songbird Katie Herzig will attest to that, as will Karin Bergquist, the scars-and-tears singer for Over the Rhine, to some pithy extent.

These two acts in the folk-rock scene are well paired, with Herzig as a younger, sunnier version of Bergquist, an idealist if not an ingénue. The Nashville native doesn’t take herself seriously, as when she introduces one of her girl-meets-boy songs as what it is, the soundtrack to a recent Frito-Lay ad. Her lovesick-centric songs have been staples of nighttime TV dramas, and yet that’s no a slight. They can be playful and breezy, betrayed with a corner-of-the-eye knowing.

Herzig opened for Over the Rhine at Louisville’s 930 Listening Room to rapt reception. Relying largely on offerings from her Apple Tree release of 2008, she warbled and chattered through a cello-accompanied, 45-minute set of songs that played either precious or thoughtful, sometimes both. The rearview-glancing “Wish You Well” appears live exactly as its title might suggest, wistful with lush harmonies. “I Hurt Too” (again, precious) conveyed her fragile-songbird side, Herzig amping up her vocals’ tremolo factor. The song begins with a “When you’re weary…” verse that can only incite comparisons to Simon and G-funk’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” even if it comes minus all the latter’s genius baggage.

Her distinct quiver serves well to separate her from the flock of female singer-songwriters crowding today’s soundscapes. As quirky as she speaks, her personality burgeoning, Herzig is nothing if not earnest in song. Thankfully her arguably benchmark song “Hologram” lets fly her screwball side, all her peccadilloes. As she confessed her nephew himself is prone to say, he who has memorized her brief catalog, “Play that song about your issues!” Tell it, kid. “Hologram” was delivered on this night as a stripped-down, minor-key ditty, losing some of its bipolar, full-band frenzy but still arriving a welcome pop treat.

Following on the heels of Herzig’s disciplined breakdown (meant with much affection), Bergquist and Linford Detweiler and company owned the stage instantly. Here we see the difference between the relative start-up and the stalwarts, a professional singer of five years and the act that’s been at it for two decades. “I’ve got a different scar for every song, and blood left still to bleed,” Bergquist intoned early on the jazzy “I Don’t Wanna Waste Your Time.” Enough said.

The smart, sex-tinged “Trouble” came next with all its vaudeville stomp and Kenny Hudson’s mandolin supplement. “Your sexy cocktail-hour stubble is doing what it should,” Bergquist winked as she wrapped her lips around each elongated vowel. An ambling, tipsy “I’m On A Roll” followed to round out the 1-2-3 punch of the first tracks from the band’s last full-length, 2007’s The Trumpet Child.

“We’re Gonna Pull Through” provided the right brand of melancholy on this night, a fitting reminder of Bergquist and her piano man Detweiler’s one-time marital strife. That saga was but five years ago, yet it already seems a foggy, distant memory, to fans if not to the duo themselves.

After Detweiler’s requisite ramble about “forbidden music” growing up in an all-but-Amish household (gasp, instruments! a piano!), the band laid into a drowsy reading of “Drunkard’s Prayer,” a tranquil, stirring song augmented by pedal steel here. The immediate segue into a raucous extended take on “Who’m I Kidding But Me” was a bit jarring before it pleased, yea, delighted the audience. Moptopped Mickey Grimm looked a phantom fifth Beatle and drummed as if a man possessed. It’s as if the guy has six hands, the way he wields those sticks and bashes the skins. His sweaty output on a solo to close the song earned a lengthy standing ovation, and on the man’s 50th birthday, no less.

Sad-eyed, nostalgic songs “Suitcase” and “Ohio,” the latter an all-time fave among OtR fans, came and went with their usual visceral fire. Of all the times I’ve seen this band live, Over the Rhine could never be accused of phoning in a single song. And they play a lot.

This led to the eve’s huge surprise, and a crystallized moment for the band: With Detweiler tapping out the opening piano chords, Bergquist melted into Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” much in the vein of Johnny Cash’s ultimate cover version. It did not trump the Man in Black’s phrasings, nor his excruciating life history enmeshed in them. It still served as more than a novel cover done by a female voice. It was eerie, as it should be, and it was victorious.

What came next? It was largely lost on the crowd after that soul-stirring number, but, after a few moments for the band to all but regroup emotionally, or to change tones, anyway, the tawdry Tom Waits tribute song “Don’t Wait” appeared as if a specter. The patented “Hey, Tom!”s showed, too, as did Bergquist banging a cookie sheet as Detweiler tore through brash Waits-esque one-liners with a carny’s glee.

The band polished off its set with a couple from-the-vault songs: the wordy, sentimental “All I Need,” from 1996’s Good Dog Bad Dog, and “When I Go,” a down-tempo weeper chock-full of ache and poise, both Bergquist trademarks, both here to stay.

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