The beefy man at the next table was really excited for the show. It was his sixth time seeing Carolyn Wonderland, but I couldn’t share his anticipation – I’d come with friends, trusting their word but never having heard her. Never having heard of her, truth be told. I figured it would be a decent but unremarkable show.
© RR Rodriguez
Then she began to play, and my jaw hit the floor. I can’t remember the last time I heard such raw, unabashed rock and roll – especially from a young(ish) female performer. She came out with both guns blazing. Pedal to the floor. Whatever analogy you want to use: her head was back, veins showing in her neck, back teeth visible. As she belted out the song her leg was pumping and her fingers were flying up and down the guitar neck. And she was good. I felt the ghost of Janis Joplin in the room.
The next song was the perfect counterpart: melodic and delicate, it showed off the band’s range. It reassured me that she wasn’t going to go off the rails with all that energy she unleashed in the first tune. And the show stayed between those two points of reference for the rest of the evening. Wonderland rocked the entire time, sometimes hard, sometimes gently. She was down to earth in her between-song patter, making fun of herself and talking with the audience that had packed into Yoshi’s Oakland, a great turnout for a Thursday night.
Wonderland isn’t a one-woman show, and the two other members of her band are also delightful, and great counterpoints to the singer. Keyboardist Cole El-Saleh looks like a stoned jazz musician with round dark glasses, long curly hair and an unflappable demeanor. While Wonderland is rocking all over the place, he’s sitting back in his chair, keeping up with her using one hand and a cool half-smile. On the other side of the stage, drummer Rob Hooper makes the singer look calm: sweating and smiling and whapping out some fine beats. He even plays the maracas with gusto.
And it turns out I wasn’t the only one to notice the Janis connection: Wonderland covered her song “What Good Can Drinking Do” on her latest album.