The Feverfew

It is always a pleasure, for the audience and the performer, when an intimate venue leads to a transcendent and awe-inspiring musical experience, rather than succumbing to awkwardness, as is usually the case. The Feverfew’s minimalist performance at the small Internet Café, located in Red Bank, New Jersey, was one of those rare shows. Though the set list was certainly not exhaustive, its relative brevity perfectly captured a few passing moments and moods in time, moments that will remain in the audience's and the performers' respective minds.

Feverfew's Bethany Spiers, in the span of her set, mesmerized all witnesses with her seamless transition from almost incomprehensible whispering to impassioned, sonorous singing. Much like the title of her debut album, Apparitions, each soft whisper, each lingering cry, each ring of the slightly detuned guitar gave an ethereal quality to the show. In addition to her magnificent voice, Spiers proved to be an expert songwriter, effortlessly weaving stories and taking the audience along on the journey. This, coupled with her folksy acoustic guitar style, made Spiers the ideal singer/songwriter.

The mainstay of the set list were tracks off her album, released by Eyeball Records, such as favorites “Goodbye, Blue Monday” and “Last Call,” while additional songs were original renditions of other musicians’ songs. The show was a representation of the idealized “singer and guitar” performance that Spiers has perfected by learning from women singer/songwriters before her. Spiers is a singer of true substance and will prove not to be just one of her own apparitions.