Picture this: You’re in Canada for the first time, you’re bloated from last night’s feast of tapioca pudding and the Moet Chandon wine you scored from a crew of dudes who’d just moved from China. You’re lifting up your shirt in the empty bathroom of Vancouver’s Wise Hall, banging your belly and shouting “I’m so bloated how did this happen.” An angel appears in your peripheral view.
Kate ‘effin Bollinger just walked in to take a pre-show leak and you are knocked for six with your tummy still out. First impressions are everything.
On Oct. 14, my best friend and I set out for The Great White North to follow Bollinger on tour from Vancouver to Portland.
To some, Ms. Keetie B is a singer/songwriter from Virginia who hangs out in the same genre pool as Faye Webster and the likes. To us, she is very the glue that holds our 4-year friendship together. We love Kate. She’s there for the heartbreaks, she’s there for the long car rides and she’s there to validate our bad behavior when we need her to.
We double-stuffed my itty bitty car deadhead style and set out truckin’ seven hours up the 5 out ofEugene. Pissing in parking lots and filling up $6 tanks has never felt more predestined.
This was the second headlining tour of Bollinger’s career and her first one on the West Coast. Her latest EP, “Look at it in the Light,” was the centerpiece of what she was showcasing, but she didn’t neglect her classics or new singles either.
Bollinger’s been busy. She moved to L.A. about a month ago and has almost immediately made the release radar with one of the city’s biggest wildcard groups. On Wednesday the 12, she released “Pictures of You,” a collaborative track penned with Drugdealer that will appear on their forthcoming EP “Hiding in Plain Site” out on Oct. 28.
“Mike and I had never met before,” Bollinger said of DrugDealer’s frontman and prime mover Michael Collins, “but after not too long we became fast friends.”
She relays that she’d been a fan of his music for awhile, and the two met when he was coming through her hometown of Richmond, via a train he hopped from Baltimore. Ridiculously on brand if you follow Collins. She played him a mix of her favorite songs, including a heaping helping of Weezer, and next thing you know, “Pictures of You” was written.
“I’ve done blind sessions before and sometimes it’s hard to do something creative with someone you don’t know,” Bollinger said. “This time it was immediate.”
Now back to my story.
Right after our fateful washroom run-in, Bollinger stepped up on stage in a satin white dress and little blue boots. She looked like a little garden gnome. I wanted to eat her. I later asked her where she picked up such a lovely dress, of course it was a Goodwill find. I literally can’t stand her.
Down to the baby pink strap on her guitar and the handmade ragdolls that sat atop her amp, she’d set a whole vibe before she even said one word to the crowd.
Ms. Keetie opened the show with “A Couple Things,” a single she released back in 2018 and revamped as the opening track on her 2020 EP “A word becomes a sound.” She then moved into classic crowd pleasers like “Candy,” sturdy new songs from “Look at It in The Light” like “I Found Out” and even one unreleased smooth roller titled “All This Time.”
Though there wasn’t one misstep all night, I’d give the best song of the evening award to the Bollinger classic, “Je Rêverai a Toi.”
What really made the performance so lush was the zen of the band behind Bollinger. I’m sayin’ they were so calm that if you looked at any of them from the shoulder up you’d have no idea they were on stage. The group consists of her old friend from high school, Jacob Grissam, on drums; Chris Lewis, who she’d met shortly after, on guitar; and the band’s newest addition, Erica Shafer, on bass.
Chill as can be. The set was settling for my bestie and I at the 11th hour of our Canadian bender.
The next morning, we were back on the road. The anticipation of the Portland show was palpable. For five hours, we munched on dry crackers to soak up our hangovers and talked tirelessly about how jazzed we’d be if Bollinger played “No Other Like You” at our second show.
To my eternal dismay, we never did find out if she played our favorite song that night.
In my fit of exhaustion, I forgot to check door times for her show at Portland’s Mississippi Studios. I’d gotten us to the venue an hour too late.
We ran in just in time to catch her last song, a 2022 single called “Running” produced by indie singer/songwriter Sam Evian.
We were crushed.
Our sadness turned bittersweet when she breathed out the opening lyrics. The whole room was so still I was scared to move a muscle.
“‘Running’ is most true to what I want to do now,” Bollinger said. “It feels like a song that will last and that I’ll feel connected to for a long time.”
She explained how to record this track, she drove from Virginia to Upstate New York where Evian has his home studio. She’d never met him before and after a bit of small talk, he’d set her up in his live room. They only tracked vocals three times and ended up keeping the second take.
“Even though it’s not the most polished take, it felt true to the song and the day we had,” said Bollinger.
That resonated with me. We may have missed her Portland stop, but closing it all out on “Running” felt true to the day for us too.
There’s only two people I’d cross country borders to see: Kate Bollinger and my best friend Naia. How lucky was I to have them both with me this past weekend.
