These were women who could have been Obies up on stage, but from the audience reaction, they might as well have been God herself. Voices on the Verge were received reverently at the Cat in the Cream on Wednesday. No clapping, no dancing (except for a few girls in the corner), not even any head bobbing. When Beth Amsel called us the wildest crowd they’d had all tour, it was surreal. Only during the last few songs did the crowd show any signs that they had pulses. An atmosphere this charged with nigh-religious fervor would have been appropriate to a Bob Dylan concert. What appeared instead were four personable women straight out of the Hi-o-Hi.
There was the self-esteem seeker Amsel, who would play the Cat on Sundays and anxiously ask everyone she met “was I okay?” There was earnest, vulnerable Rose Polenzani, the one your boy friends all have crushes on. There was spacey, creative writing major, performance poetry spouting Jess Klein. And there was Erin McKeown, the girl you’re scared to talk to. The only thing that set these women apart from the person standing in line at Stevie (and it sure wasn’t their stage banter) was their top-to-bottom stellar musianship.
When it comes to music, none of these voices are on the verge. They’re peddling in midair somewhere between one cliff and the next. Guitars moved crisply between folk strumming and blues licks, with nary a note out of tune. Voices blended beautifully in clear harmonies. Each woman took a turn on percussion. The blend of instruments and voices was instantly familiar and yet still new, finding the lesser-known path through rock and folk. I would be willing to guess that there is one catalyst to this masterful sum-greater-than-parts extravanganza, and she graduated from Brown last year.

McKeown is a rock star. She already has the attitude, but it only emerged when she played, and she played everything: acoustic, two electric, piano and percussion. At 22 she has the commanding presence that sets her apart as the one to watch. All the women were engaging on stage, but she was a force, bobbing her head, dipping her knees, playing Eric Clapton on solos. At first it seemed affected, but the longer she played the more she backed herself up. When she and Polenzani went it alone in an encore, the charisma spiked off the charts. Her innovative arrangements and crisp guitar phrasing made each song something exciting musically, whether it be showcasing jazzy wa-wa pedal or gentle picking.
The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for the lyrics. McKeown started out singing about “Ed Success,” Klein about finding love in the trees and things could only go up from there — but they didn’t. There was nowhere that Voices on the Verge showed their age to less advantage.
By far the best song of the set was “Tainted Love,” which combined their superlative musical talents with someone else’s words. All the women sell the songs extremely well, what with brassy, powerful voices and the McKeown compositional touch, but it wasn’t enough to save them from puerile lyric purgatory. I would love to quote you some, but none have stuck with me, no doubt that’s a positive thing. I know Klein, whose voice held a tremulous power, sang, “I asked the owl in the tree,” and also, “the smile said to the tear.” Polenzani had a few up and a lot of down moments (“It doesn’t matter if I’ve been good, hey/They still love me anyway”). Amsel showed some promise. McKeown would have if the lyrics to the songs she’d chosen for the show hadn’t been so pretentious (“Softly Moses”).
Still, there’s a lot of time to improve and some signs that music is moving in the right direction. As long as the music stays as good, the talent has got to get out. Folk is a long, long road, and Voices on the Verge have just gotten started. Let’s just hope they encounter many crowds willing to dance.