Show Review

By expressing her personal emotions in a very powerful and profound way, Kaki King’s style is purely unique. Her playing could be described as controlled chaos, with a hint of inward bliss, as both sadness and wonder fill the spaces within her compositions. She has truly developed her own style that is reminiscent of what it would sound like if Leo Kottke had a crush on Victor Wooten. By manically tapping and slapping out the rhythms on the body of her guitar, and then delicately finger picking her strings, Kaki King creates true juxtaposition.

The seated show at Higher Ground was heartfelt, as King played tunes from both of her albums, along with a few new ones. There was one point where King was delicately rubbing the top of her guitar, and you could close your eyes and think you were hearing a drummer slowly slithering across the snare with brushes. She even broke out a baritone guitar for a couple songs, which gave the sound of a bass and standard guitar playing simultaneously.

Highlights for the evening included the songs “Magazine” and “Happy As A Dead Pig In The Sunshine,” in which the title of the latter, she explained as meaning "giddy." King even jokingly sang a couple verses of Def Leppard's 80’s hit “Photograph.” Afterwards, she told stories about how she enjoys playing Def Leppard and Blondie songs in her spare time, which drew a round of laughs from the audience. It was during this dialogue, which King explained how she grew up listening to pop music and strives to write pop, which elicited even more laughter from the audience. During the last song of the evening, she brought out her lap slide guitar and quoted the famous Santo &Johnny song “Sleepwalk,” serving as a blissful cap to the night indeed.

Joe Adler is a musician based out of Burlington, Vermont. He performs regularly around the Burlington area with his band The Joe Adler Acoustic Project.