Show Review // Kaiti Jones at Arts at the Armory on 5/4/23

            If you’ve ever wondered about the giant castle-like structure in the heart of Somerville, it’s an arts space where concerts are occasionally held. The inside has wooden floors like you would see in a gymnasium, and impossibly high ceilings. The walls are brick, and the chairs are white plastic. There is a bar in the back that also serves food, and there were merch tables along the wall. Tonight, Kaiti Jones opened there for David Wax Museum and her set was a hauntingly beautiful example of indie folk.

My only complaint is that the set was all too brief with her performing 4 songs for the crowd of a couple hundred people. She came out on stage wearing jeans and a jean jacket over a white striped shirt. Her long brown hair was pulled up on her head. She opened with an enigmatic statement: “Good evening, my name is Kaiti Jones; and I’m going to play mostly sad songs,” which brought a few nervous titters from the crowd. But once she had proved her talent by playing her first song, she had the audience eating from her hand for the rest of her set. They sat back and let the music wash over them and they even laughed whole heartedly at her witty banter between songs.

She performed her song Tossed first, and her voice was at once elegant and sorrowful, with simple guitar playing backing her up. The second song Kaiti performed was Light On which had a lot of beautiful vocalizing. The lyrics are superb with lines such as: “I don’t want to kiss you with the light on // because in the dark the blackest parts of my heart feel at home.” Next was Weak Days which she took the time to inform us that she wrote the chorus for, then finished writing 10 years later. She wrapped up the set with Big Yellow Moon which was written about a cove in her hometown of Portland, Maine. The singing and strumming were reminiscent of the ebb and flow of the water in the cove. Kaiti plays with a quiet concentration, with her voice and the guitar in a moving dance together.

Kaiti will play at Club Passim with Hannah Siglin on May 19^th.