Credit: Photo by John Anderson

Joanna Barbera

Lamberts, January 4

Emigrating from her native New York City last year, Joanna Barbera swept in locally alongside a sophomore LP, Forget, that made you remember Sharon Van Etten and Laura Burhenn. She carries a heaviness in her songwriting and textured smoke in her delivery. Saturday brought less of that weight onstage, with Barbera working toward something fresher with a backing quartet more equipped to back a Telecaster than a Martin acoustic. Barbera settled in by the 45-minute set’s third song, “New York City,” her most jangly from Forget, lively stepping around busy drumming. She harmonized energetically with one bandmate and overpowered the entire outfit at points in between, like the captivating “Lesson,” which adopted an entirely more active sound. Her highest points came late, on the expansive Carnival Beginning confessional “Drive On” and a new duet with Shane Cooley, Lamberts’ headliner Saturday.

This article appears in January 10 • 2014.

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