“You guys are rowdy in Brooklyn!  I like it,” Rachael Yamagata told her sold-out Knitting Factory audience last Friday November 4^th after receiving some wild cheering.  Draped in her long, slightly unruly dark hair and camo dress, Yamagata played a strong set of tunes, some new and some sold, some wild and roaring, and some soft and delicate.

There’s something so effortless about the way Yamagata sounds as she moves from whispers and rasp to growls that roll out into screams before they crack into a beautiful grittiness.  Songs like “Worn Me Down,” from Happenstance and “Even If I Don’t,” from her new album Chesapeake showcase her vocals in this sense perfectly.  And then there’s “The Way It Seems to Go,” a feisty, bluesy Bonnie Raitt kind of tune with steel pedal guitar and such sexy sauciness, it’s all so hard to resist.

What was most remarkable about the set though was how she was able to hold the audience in such rapt silence and awe, even on Friday night, when chattiness usually seems to take over.  An extremely remarkable talent in the most effortless and sultry way, Yamagata is certainly worth seeing live.