The pre-show, mingling minutes at the Bishop saw the hesitant appearance of patrons trickling in in all types of styles; combat boots and short plaid skirts, hooded blazers and striped bow ties, plaid scarves and wedges. It was a theme of variety that would be carried on throughout the night in both acts, from Mary Okie's harmonizing foursome returning to the Bishop for another bout, to dreamy, genre-bending singer-songwriter Cheyenne Marie Mize, who brought with her not just her plethora of instrumental talent, but also a brand new album.
The audience consisted primarily of straggling drinkers and bandsmen when the Mary Okie quartet mounted the stage and began a number that had the chilling, soothing, on-edge quality of an atonal lullaby spiced with the incessant refrain: "Not gonna be here long." It immediately sparked the crowd into growth, and served as both a warning and an eventual truth. After some impressive harmonizing, catchy accordion, and one story that I won't quote in full, but which concerned a dream of forced digestion of cooked rat for the pleasure of house guests, and subsequent morning vomiting, Mize ascended.
For an artist who has only been touring with her band for two years, Mize's composure was admirable. She daintily sipped a beer and scouted the floor and chatted with her crowd before she walked on, and although her pre-performance jitters were apparent, they were the good kind; her lips strained in conversation, waiting to lull; her fingers restless on her glass, waiting to strum. Her movements became far more natural when she opened her performance with "Best;" shrugging herself into a rhythm and simultaneously dominating the microphone with each successive burst of her chorus: "it was all for the best." To her credit, it took Mize no time at all to lose herself in her music. By her second song her movements had already taken the form of ripples, echoes of her sound, and her voice had lost any edge it had to it and ascended into her natural, intimate expression.
There were occasional disturbances in the mood. An overly amplified guitar delivered a quaking shudder through the drums during one of her quite and more soulful pieces. Nothing was detracted from her crowd, who swayed and rocked drunkenly like the riff was nothing more than Mize channeling another of her crooning currents. Although she said very little throughout her performance and spoke with meekness, her powers of command were evident when the audience was shuffling and two-stepping to the very next song ("Going Under").
Another powerful piece was on her latest album. "Call Me Beautiful," transported her guitar from soulful rocking to garish incessancy, with her voice leaping into a strangled cry/roar/plea reminiscent of The Cranberries' Dolores O'Riordan's cries of "Zombie!"
Yet Mize's strongest hit was also her newest. "Windowpane," currently awaiting release, had Mize in her element with strong vocals and an all-too- inviting intimacy she indulged by hugging her microphone close one moment, as if sharing a secret between lovers, and blazing forth with a show of virtuosity on the violin the next. It was a tangible mood, as fragile as the windowpane itself. I shattered it by knocking over a beer glass with my elbow. Mize didn't notice. When her drummer pointed it out afterwards she smiled. "Punctuation," she said. Only too true.
Post by Brandon Cook; photo courtesy of Dan Coleman
