Free At Noon Flashback: Earnest on her electric, Margaret Glaspy echoes folk and grunge vibes

Margaret Glaspy | Photo by Sydney Schaefer for WXPN | sydneyschaeferphotos.com

With wide-eyed wonder, an audience member in the front row grabbed the arm of her friend as singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy took her voice from a tender warble to an impassioned gravel. Not quite folk and not quite grunge, Glaspy has carved out her own space in the scene to encapsulate the myriad of sounds she blends together. With her debut album Emotions and Math released in June, Glaspy power-packed her performance with as many tracks from the new LP as she could fit, even treating the crowd to encore featuring a just-written, untitled track.

Glaspy and her band blazed through several cuts from her debut full-length, like title track “Emotions and Math” and “Pins & Needles.” For “Somebody to Anybody” her backing drummer and bassist exited the stage for a song with just Glaspy and her electric guitar front and center.

When the band returned, they sprung into “Memory Street” which required attentiveness between Glaspy and the drummer. The song repeats itself 10 odd times as she sings “times I,” as the drummer pounded away with a mallet. Keeping his eyes concentrated on Glaspy for the cue, the repetition broke with the revelation of the line “times I took forever to forget.”

After rounding out the show with her single “You & I,” Glaspy returned solo to the stage for an encore performance of a brand new song that she had spent the past several weeks working on. Tentatively titled “Song 678,” Glaspy crooned about not being someone’s mother, someone’s father or their taxman. “I’m your lover / one heart, two arms / waiting to hold you.” The proclamation is followed by another verse of mis-comparisions, this time about less tangible things like hanging plants and churches.

Glaspy expressed her love for Philadelphia throughout her set and will make an exciting return on October 13th for a show at Johnny Brenda’s. Get more information on the show here, listen back to the Free at Noon below and check out photos from the set.

Setlist
Emotions & Math
Pins & Needles
Parental Guidance
Somebody to Anybody
Memory Street
No Matter Who
Love Like This
You & I