Margaret Glaspy doesn’t hold back at NON-COMM

“I’ve been around this world a few times over,” sang New York City’s Margaret Glaspy on her new song “Act Natural” toward the top of her set during night two of NON-COMMvention 2023. That experience was evident throughout, as Glaspy debuted several of her brand new songs  – which she teased as coming later in the year – with a well earned bravado to a crowd that simply could not get enough.

Glaspy is, very clearly, a performer who knows her way around a hook and catchy chorus but Wednesday night’s performance had a welcome edge that wasn’t quite as obvious on her previous recordings. Debuting a number of new songs, Glaspy was angry, a little bit sarcastic, and thoroughly out of patience with the world’s collective crap, most notably on the set standout “Female Brain”, a song that ran through a righteous list of indignities with a simmering playfulness.

The audience not only welcomed the chunky riffs and rabid drum fills that came with such vitriol but swelled to match Glaspy and her band’s energy, an ideal way to kick off night two on the Music Hall Stage. It was the kind of set that comes and goes much too quickly for everyone’s liking but certainly made an indelible impression on the World Cafe Live audience.