Twenty years after The Greatest first arrived, Cat Power returned to the stage to prove that time hasn’t dulled its quiet power. On March 4, Cat Power, whose real name is Chan Marshall, came to Roadrunner in Boston to celebrate two decades of the aptly-named 2006 album.
The crowd was a mix of Generation X-ers in leather jackets and their Generation Z children, most of whom were only slightly older than the album itself. Before the show, the air was permeated with references to an intergenerational hipster culture; all around me floated name-drops of Butthole Surfers, David Lynch, and The Lonely Island, to name a few.
As soon as Marshall took the stage, she was met with both warmth and an eerily quiet captivation. For most of the show, the crowd was so attentive that the only audible sound besides the music was the ice being scooped at the bar. In between songs, overwhelming cheering erupted.
“I love you!” one audience member shouted at Marshall.
“I love you, too!” she replied.
Indeed, Marshall brought an atmosphere of love and joy to the venue. In between songs, and sips of her tea, she joked with the audience that she never knew she would enjoy singing the music of The Greatest so much. “Twenty years later, and I’m still here,” she announced, drawing roaring applause.
From the music, it was hard to tell that two decades had passed. Marshall was joined onstage by her four-piece band, who played The Greatest cover to cover with remarkable ease. While the lush string orchestrations of the original album were missing, the band compensated by filling the venue with dense bass and rock organ across most tracks.
Some highlights included a honky-tonk rendition of “Could We,” which Marshall re-released on her 2026 EP Redux, and a powerful, driving version of the album’s closing track “Love and Communication.”
While most of the songs remained faithful to their original arrangements, “The Moon” took a surprising turn. Marshall sang through a heavy autotune filter, giving her voice and the ballad itself almost a Charli XCX-like feel.
The evening’s most tender moment came after the band had played through the entire album. Marshall ended with a series of covers, dedicating her version of “I’ll Be Seeing You” to Joseph Sater, co-founder of The Middle East Restaurant & Nightclub. Sater, who also served for decades as the club’s manager, passed away on March 2. Cat Power first played the Middle East in 1995, and Marshall reflected on it fondly during the show.
Marshall ended the evening with her rendition of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” bringing the set to a quiet and emotional close.
Cat Power’s show was a no-photography affair, and so for 90 minutes the glow of phone screens disappeared, the crowd listening with the same focus that once defined small club shows in the mid-2000s. In that sense, the night felt like a return to the moment when The Greatest first arrived – twenty years gone, but somehow still right here.
Clea Gaïtas Sur '27 is a staff writer