Fine singing + memorable sings = enjoyable Andrews concert

It seemed appropriate Courtney Marie Andrews played the historic Troubadour on her Los Angeles tour stop. This was a venue where Linda Ronstadt performed early in her career, and Andrews' singing style oftentimes gets positively compared to Ronstadt. Andrews' fine singing voice (applied to memorable songs) made for a truly enjoyable L.A. Wednesday night.

It would have been better, though, had the crowd been larger. Granted, this was a midweek concert. Yet while Los Angeles may not be "the city that never sleeps," it's still a late-night kind of town.

Nevertheless, Andrews was in good spirits, joking often with the crowd and her band. Andrews opened with the title cut to her "Loose Future" album and played for just over an hour. While Andrews has been recording full-length albums for well over a decade now, she mostly stuck to material from the "Loose Future" and "Old Flowers" albums. All of these songs are topnotch, though, so it amounted to a strong set of mostly newer material.

The way Andrews' voice slides into the high notes during "If I Told" is the kind of singing that gives listeners goosebumps. It's why she had the audience in rapt attention from the get-go.

Andrews played mostly acoustic guitar, but switched to piano for latter songs, including the Joni Mitchell-esque "Old Flowers." She commented on how she brought new flowers to tonight's show, before singing this one, which were laid atop the piano. She later tossed these flowers out to the audience at show's end.

Andrews seems like a deadly serious person, based solely upon her oftentimes pained lyrics. Therefore, it was nice to see her showing her lighter side live. Even when her songs take on severely hurtful subject matter, such as the familial dysfunctionality explored with "It Must Be Someone Else's Fault," her vocals are never less than truly beautiful.

Linda Ronstadt may have one of pop music's best voices, but she certainly never wrote songs as good as Andrews does, which made her Troubadour debut one special occasion.