• K.C. Fennessy
• Fiona Campbell and Katy Goodman

Before I came across this post from Bree McKenna, a couple of friends contacted me on Wednesday to alert me to the Vivian Girls in-store at the downtown Nordstrom on behalf of designer Kate Spade, possibly because I've written about the band and their various off-shoots a few times over the years.

• K.C. Fennessy

Since I was also planning to catch Cate Le Bon, I didn't think I could make it, but that was before I realized the event was at 6:30pm (I'm not sure why I thought a free department store gig would take place any later than that). I also had a busy afternoon planned, but I wrapped up all my errands just before the show began, so I caught the whole thing, and it was...weird. Not bad-weird, just weird.

• K.C. Fennessy

It's weird to watch an indie-pop band playing in the middle of an upscale department store—it would've been even weirder if they were punk or metal—but as much as I'm tempted to make a few cracks about this corporate affair, it would be hypocritical at best. Not only do I own some Spade merch,* but I've been shopping at Nordstrom for as long as I can remember. When I moved to Anchorage in the 1970s, store #12 was known as Northern Commercial (N.C.) until the Nordstrom family bought it out. I later worked there all through college.

But as weird as it was—with audience members gathered around the escalator banks between the Individualist and Savvy departments—the band was good, and their girl-group sound really does fit with Spade's Swinging Sixties aesthetic.

*Exactly one cardigan; that shit's expensive.

• K.C. Fennessy

I still made it to see Le Bon at The Crocodile, and she was great. Charles Leo Gebhardt IV opened, and played a fine set, recalling Buddy Holly and Marshall Crenshaw with a little Ray Davies on the side (that's Rachel Ratner on bass, TV Coahran on drums). And it's worth noting that Gebhardt knows something about style himself after working at classy joints like Blackbird and Barneys New York.

• K.C. Fennessy

In this post, I expressed the hope that Le Bon would attract a reasonably sized crowd, and she did. A few people even applauded whenever they recognized a song, like KEXP favorite "Fold the Cloth." Though Cate and her colleagues didn't sound anything like Beat Happening, she and two of the other players would switch instruments, just as Calvin Johnson, Bret Lunsford, and Heather Lewis used to do. That was fun to watch (only the drummer stuck to his set).

• K.C. Fennessy

These pictures aren't very flattering, but I got a kick out of Cate's pseudo-gothic attire—very un-Kate Spade—though her on-stage persona was anything but doom and gloom. As with Katy "La Sera" Goodman of the Vivian Girls, she's got charm to spare. They didn't say as much, but that goes for her group, as well.

• K.C. Fennessy

So, a weird night, but a good one. Instead of something pricey from Kate Spade, I purchased a reasonably priced Cate Le Bon t-shirt ($15) and CD ($10) from a lovely Welsh fellow she introduced as her best friend since she was 11 years old.