Concert Review: Kathleen Edwards at Knuckleheads, 07/07/2008
Kathleen Edwards
May 7, 2008
Knuckleheads Saloon
Better than: A bloody, balls-out hockey brawl
by RICHARD GINTOWT
You have to beat the trains to get to Knuckleheads on time. I squeezed through just before the gates went down last night, breathing a sigh of relief that I wasn’t counting boxcars during the beginning of Kathleen Edwards‘ set.
It’s tempting to make some tepid metaphor about trains and country singers, but Edwards isn’t exactly a country singer. She hails from the suburbs of Ottawa, Ontario, and there’s nothing particularly southern about her music other than the rose-print western shirts that her guitarist and husband Colin Cripps wears. Edwards’ road-tested band sounds more like The Tragically Hip than Lucinda Williams. She plays Gibson guitars, not Telecasters. Songwriters who spend every day in 90-degree heat sound fatigued. Edwards sounds like she’s ready to go sledding.
