The Nields Sisters Give Super Folky Performance
Folk Duo Provides Real Valentine Folk

by Jessica Rosenberg

Good folk singers can always read the room, and Nerissa Nields had tuned in perfectly to the Oberlin vibe spilling out the doors of the Cat in the Cream on Wednesday night. A few minutes earlier, she had been searching for a word that meant “to make something tangible,” when speaking about Valentine’s Day, and her younger sister Katryna leaned into the mic and said “Necco wafer hearts.” She was looking for “commidify,” but everyone agreed that Katryna’s suggestion was better. 
On the one day of year when most of us feel (or are made to feel) that we really don’t have enough love, the Nields had the perfect way of reminding us that the Oberlin community is a place that gives us a sense of belonging, and that sense is never more in evidence than at the Cat when it’s full. They played a folk show. 
There was a visibly pregnant Katryna, looking like every Ren Fair enthusiast you ever knew in high school, dancing in black velvet, and Nerissa, who was a cross between Tori Amos and Go Go from Tiny Toons, cradling a battered acoustic guitar as Katryna did her baby and laughingly complaining about not getting any Valentines. 
And they represented two of the defining kinds of folk voices. Katryna had the thin quavering croon, a la Joni Mitchell with a little Natalie Merchant thrown in, and Nerissa was the throaty, husky, vocal anchor, hovering in and around the tune, but never quite getting there until she threw back her head and wailed, producing a room-filling, steady note with a power that seemed amazing from such a small woman. 
The technical quality was the best when Katryna sang lead and Nerissa sang harmony, but nobody wants voice majors at a folk show anyway. What’s wanted is reality, not perfection, the kind of singer/songwriters who can live inside a song and walk around in it, and we got that in spades, as the audience quite literally hung on every word. As the sisters sang a cappela, there was a silence like a pool of water, with each note dropping into it. The audience held its breath, willing the last note to waver in the air a moment longer. Then the applause came crashing down. 
The songs at folk shows should sometimes be topical, but they should mostly be about love. As this was the infamous Valentine’s Day, there were many songs that fit that description, and all of them showcased the Nields’ unique talents for creating all kinds of stories within the simple framework of verse/chorus/verse. Sometimes the narrators were women, searching for love or completion or just a bed for the night (“Easy People”), enjoying crushes (“Mr. Right Now”) or gleefully throwing over a disappointment (“Last Kisses”). 
Or the view switched back and forth from verse to verse, as in the gentle, traditionally-fashioned encore, “This Happens Again and Again” or was good old gender- neutral, like “Snowman,” where the subject is emotional vulnerability. Sometimes the songs just spoke the language of life, as when every pair of eyes shut in recognition of the beautiful and true “The Hush Before the Heartbreak.” There was the country-esque “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and the exuberant “Jeremy Newborn Street,” which seemed like a straightforward evocation of “a happy day,” but with a tangy twist. 
There was the nostalgic, bittersweet pragmatism of the closer, “Gotta Get Over Greta,” all about losing your best friend. They all left you wondering about the show’s theme: what is this love stuff anyway? And good folk songs always make people smile against their will, and the unexpected turns of phrase in “Best Black Dress” (“Mr. George Fox/Has a daughter/Just my age…”) did just that. During the emotional high point of the evening, a vital rendition of the empowering “The Town is Wrong,” I looked down during the last verse to find my right hand clenched. I was actually shaking my fist. This is what folk is all about: triumph, community. 
The emotion that a good folk show brings isn’t describable in words, even the words of the songs themselves. It comes from the audience, from the performer, from the connection between them. It comes from the long, pointless stories that folkies tell about travelling and growing up and whatever happens to come to mind. It comes from hearing someone tell your life in a way you’ve never thought to, and from your saying “yes.” It comes as a surprise. 
Oberlin has had its share of folk shows, but rarely is there one that can truly be called definitive. The Nields sisters delivered just that.