Another Side of Regina Spektor

As rain fell upon thousands of wet heads in Brooklyn’s McCarren Pool last Friday evening, Regina Spektor’s classically trained hands danced on the keys of her Steinway grand piano. Although Spektor brings together the worlds of pop, rock and classical, there is no mistaking her sound—poppy, theatrical, humorous and, at times, touching—for that of another artist.

Spektor’s tongue danced around, too. Sometimes it sounded like she had two tongues—one for singing and one for doing anything but. As in her recorded material, she often took quick, sharp turns from singing making sounds that are almost indescribable. She punctuated her singing with bits of what can be called post-modernist scatting—playfully mangling a word the crowd expected her to sing beautifully, theatrically stuttering a consonant or suddenly dropping a conversational aside.

From her latest album, Begin to Hope, Spektor played popular tracks like “Fidelity” and “Better,” both of which are more poppy—and, frankly, less interesting—than much of her other work. Another upbeat tune, “Samson,” one of the last songs of that wet evening, had an aura of honesty (vocals) and melancholy (piano) that the former two tracks lacked.

Spektor also played “Apres Moi,” a song from the new album with power evident from the first piano note. It has the sonic oomph of Guns N Roses ballads like “November Rain,” and live she played the song on her piano unaccompanied yet still managed to convey musical beauty and muscle. To her Eastern European-immigrant fans, this song is also knows as one of the very few tracks on which Spektor sings a verse in Russian. (She sings it so well, in fact, that it’s disappointing she doesn’t do it more often.)

Spektor is primarily known as a singer-songwriter who plays a grand piano, but this “rule” has so many exceptions that it’s best to forget it. For about half of her set Spektor’s vocals and piano were accompanied by a trio—cello, viola, violin—that served as a nice backup in all the right places without overshadowing the star of the evening. For a few songs Spektor was accompanied by one or two beatboxing dudes. She also played two songs on her trademark light-green, hollow-bodied electric guitar, one of which was “That Time,” another well-known track from her latest album. “That Time,” with its fun and playful vocals and lyrics, sounds more punk than almost anything else by the artist. And as if that wasn’t enough, Spektor did “Poor Little Rich Boy,” from her album Soviet Kitsch, with her left hand playing the piano and her right hand hitting a drumstick against some sort of wooden surface. So, yes, she’s a musical acrobat.

But what’s most notable about Spektor, both in concert and on record, is how seamlessly and simultaneously she manages to play so many different roles—a singer-songwriter, comedian, actor, storyteller. Her lyrics and stories carry her music. And they always get a reaction.

One song, “Summer in the City,” opened with: “Summer in the city/ (pause) Means cleavage, cleavage, cleavage.” That got a laugh out of many people in the audience, even though most looked like they knew what was coming. Or when on “Music Box”—with its occasional Eastern European-influenced piano playing and cabaret singing—Spektor sang lines like “to sing another melody comple-he-he-he (she makes near-choking sounds).” That one also got a laugh, not only because the word mangling is so well-timed but also because it’s funny in the lyrical context of the song.

Like most good music with an experimental spirit, Spektor’s songs can at times be hard to listen to. It may take time to get used to some of her shenanigans. But, paradoxically, the best part about that process is that there’s a degree to which you never get used to it.