Review: Quirky Kate Nash attracts females to First Ave

Pssssst. Hey fellows. Ever wonder what young women sit around and yak about in their college dorm rooms?

Go see British pop sensation Kate Nash in concert or listen to her No. 1 British CD, "Made of Bricks," and you'll find out. Nash, 20, is the uncrowned queen of unabashed, tart-tongued guy-bashers. That's probably why the main floor of First Avenue in Minneapolis was packed on Saturday night with college-age women.

Nash is a triumph of the MySpace music world, vaulting from Internet favorite to a blockbuster British album and the best female artist award at this year's Brits. To her credit, Nash wasn't as inexperienced and underwhelming in concert as U.S. MySpace goddess Colbie Caillat was in her First Avenue headline debut. But, like many MySpace music sites, Nash seems like a work in progress.

At her best, she was like Alanis Morissette as a piano popster, with a gift for potty-mouthed putdowns. But too often she was a quirky do-it-yourself singer-songwriter with no palpable emotion in her singing. There also seemed to be an occasional disconnect between the vicious bite of her lyrics and her giddy, giggly between-song persona, suggesting that perhaps her occasional cockney accent and sassy attitude were put on.

Unlike Amy Winehouse, who seems as genuinely conflicted and troubled as her songs, Nash came across like the good girl at boarding school who was proper in front of the teachers but shared her naughty thoughts in private with her dorm-mates. But how bad-girl can Nash be when she mocks herself by sweetly saying, "The next song is a quiet one so I'm going to rudely ask you to shut up. ... Please shut up. Shhhhhh."

She'd be sweet and smiley, with a self-consciously goofy curtsy one minute, and then, in song the next minute, start screaming expletives at some bloke for no logical reason. Usually in pop music, drama and tension build to anger. But then, Nash's songs aren't very conventional.

Many of her ditties were built around one-hand piano plunking or tuneless acoustic-guitar strumming. Her proudly amateurish approach was complemented by the rudimentary efforts of her four backup musicians. Her attempt at punk rock, a new tune titled "Model Behaviour," was juvenile braying. "I Hate Seagulls," another new number on guitar, started with a litany of things she hates (seagulls, being sick, whining, toothaches, etc.) and ended with a recitation of things she likes (getting drunk, picking strawberries, cream tea, etc.). Young women can be complicated, can't they?

The best pieces in Nash's 85-minute set were the ones with more conventional structure: the current radio favorite "Merry Happy" with its "Chopsticks"-like piano simplicity, the full-of-attitude "Mouthwash," the sing-along "Foundations," the atmospherically jazzy "Dickhead" and a campfire-like rendition of the Supremes' "Baby Love," a combustible combination of sublime innocence and creative instincts that define Nash's persona.

Jon Bream • 612-673-1719