Review: Faye Webster’s sold-out Palace concert in St. Paul was awash in dark romance

Between the bubbles that blew through the crowd in the fourth song, the alto sax that smoothly billowed through several others and all the lightly jazzy grooves throughout, Faye Webster’s concert Sunday night at the Palace Theatre could have been mistaken for a kitschy, retro lounge-act show instead of a hip modern affair for indie-rockers and TikTok users.

However, Webster rocked just enough here and there in the 70-minute show to justify earplug usage by the largely under-21, sold-out crowd. Her sometimes darkly opaque, sometimes humorously candid lyrics came through loud and clear, too.

The Atlanta singer/songwriter, 27, has been bustling her way up the Twin Cities club ladder from the Fine Line to First Avenue to Palace over the past two years while also becoming a favorite at major U.S. and European festivals. Her next stop locally might be the Armory or Surly Field.

This time around, Webster upped her stage production with a clever set design featuring colorfully lit-up washing machines, shirts on clotheslines and a large, white T-shirt backdrop on which video and arty lighting were projected. The laundry theme was tied to the title and artwork of her latest album, “Underdressed for the Symphony.” Hence the soapy bubble machine going off during Song No. 4, “Right Side of My Neck.”

Actually her fifth record — she started recording at age 16 — “Underdressed for the Symphony” made up half of Sunday’s set list, starting with the night’s opener, “But Not Kiss,” one of her biggest hits right out of the gate.

“You’re all that I have but can’t get,” Webster sang in that charmingly obsessed opener, sort of a slowed-down and warped-sounding update of R.E.M.’s “The One I Love.” Fans added to the obsessive vibe by singing along passionately.

“But Not Kiss” was one of several tunes early in the show laced with dramatic piano parts and an eerily twangy vibe, also including a mellower new standout, “Thinking About You.” The music turned jazzier mid-set with 2021′s “A Dream with a Baseball Player,” featuring a fantastical deluge of lyrical imagery delivered with a Rickie Lee Jones-like, sly vocal prowess.

The jazzy tones reached an apex a few songs later in “Jonny,” another darkly romantic slow-burner that Webster and her five-piece band masterfully stretched out onstage to twice its 3½-minute recorded length. This one, too, boasted a haunted-sounding romantic hook: “This wasn’t supposed to be a love song, but I guess it is now.”

For her pre-encore finale, Webster rocked out and put a happy spin on “He Loves Me Yeah!,” conspicuously changing it from “he” to “she” in what internet speculators believe is a nod to a budding real-life romance.

She put on too short a show and left out several of her best songs, including “I Know You” and her new album’s title track. But it was hard to argue with the oldie she chose for the closer, “Kingston,” a slow-bobbing, hypnotic fan favorite that sent the enchanted fans off into the night dreaming about the next time and so much more.