Checking in with Rachael Yamagata and Lenka on the Hotel Cafe Tour, and Enter to Win a CD! - Page 2

The Hotel Cafe Tour’s history goes back four years but was breaking out a women-only lineup for the first time. And after hitting the road with her own band earlier in the fall to promote the release of her ambitious new double disc, Elephants ... Teeth Sinking Into Heart, Yamagata was replacing Ingrid Michaelson as the draw among a group that included Meiko, Jenny Owen Youngs, Thao Nguyen, and Samantha Crain.

As the tour headed west, preparing to make a November 11 stop at the Bluebird Theater in Denver, Yamagata, Meiko, and Nguyen were to be joined by Kate Havnevik, Lenka, and Emily Wells.

Yamagata, a veteran of previous Hotel Cafe tours who got her start as a solo artist at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, was looking forward to the all-female twist, and the fact she would meet new performers like Lenka along the way.

“She’s the one from Australia, right?” Yamagata asked of the pop star from Down Under who earned attention in the States with “The Show,” the snappy single off her self-titled debut album that she performed in October on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with Craig Ferguson. “I’m very excited to meet her, actually; that’ll be cool.”

Lenka, left, who already has met Meiko and Wells, also can thank the Hotel Cafe for her gain of fame. “I’ve done shows there during my short career here in America,” she said. “They’ve been really supportive, in general. Then they asked me to do the tour; they asked me to put a song on their Christmas album (“All My Bells Are Ringing”). It’s quite all-encompassing. They’re a lovely bunch of people and I’m really excited to be on that tour.”

She was involved in a residency at the Hotel Cafe in September, performing a 45-minute set each week for a month to give herself and her band an opportunity to “try out new things. ... The first night we were pretty nervous but by the fourth night it felt like home and we were really relaxed.”

Knowing very little about Lillith Fair, Lenka was more in tune with artists from Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. She anticipated this tour to be more “like an old-style review. ... It actually, for me, brings back memories of seeing my dad’s jazz band when I was a little kid, with people jumping up onstage just to hear songs.”

Article Author: Michael Bialas

A newspaper editor and former college football player, Michael Bialas makes sports his business but exploring and reviewing music, movies, TV and other forms of pop culture are among the games he enjoys playing now.
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