When Rachael Price, the lead singer of indie throwback group Lake Street Dive is performing – as she and the band did Tuesday at Musikfest Café at SteelStacks in Bethlehem – it’s hard to take your eyes off her.
Her attitude – a flip of the hand, a swing of the hair, a swivel of the hip – helped convey the meanings, or mood, of the 20 songs the band did in a 90-minute set. Or simply made them more interesting to watch.
But the visuals wouldn’t have meant much if Price couldn’t sing.
She could – mostly in a throaty voice that worked well on the heavily ’70s-soul-influenced set list, starting strongly with the title track of the group’s 2014 disc “Bad Self Portraits,” and rounding into nice tonality on the second song, “I Don’t Care About You,” from the group’s most recent release, last year’s “Side Pony.”
Songs from those discs – six from the former, seven from the latter — made up most of the show. But that was OK, as they formed a cohesive set.
“We’re gonna do some Motown for you tonight if that’s all right,” Price said before “Rabid Animal” from “Bad Self Portrait.” That was followed by the very Motown, well-played “Use Me Up” from the same disc.
Price, in a black crop-top shirt and billowy black pants, exuded a sexuality, swinging her hips on the suggestive “Side Pony.” But she was equally comfortable with the girl group vibe of “Spectacular Failure” and the Motown-derivative “Saving All My Sinning,” and the slower, more nuanced “How Good It Feels” actually better showed off her voice.
When she went for a high note at the end of “Godawful Things,” it wasn’t even really needed.
All of that is not to say the other members of Lake Street Dive didn’t contribute. The first trumpet from Mike Olson, five songs into the show on “Hello? Goodbye!” actually drew applause from the nicely full crowd of 750. And he later blared on the far more funky “Be Cool.”
Guest keyboardist Akie Bermiss also joined on “Hello? Goodbye!” and immediately was put to use, adding delightful honky tonk. Bermiss even took lead vocals – and was good — later on a cover of Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Let Me Roll It.”
A far better cover was Prince’s “When You Were Mine,” which Price morphed from The Artist’s desperate diatribe into a cooler R&B approach. An equally good cover was George Michael’s “Faith,” done a part of a mid-set acoustic mini set, with the band gathered around a single microphone with bass, tambourine and trumpet.
Not all of the set was as good. A late-set, four-minute drum solo by percussionist Mike Calabrese seemed forced and an awkward fit since it was musically different from the rest of the set. A couple of other songs – the older “Don’t Make Me Hold Your Hand” from its 2010 self-titled disc among them – weren’t bad, simply not as good as the rest of the set.
The main set closed nicely with the ’70s pop/rock/R&B stylings – accentuated by a disco ball – of “Call Off Your Dogs,” then “You Go Down Slow.”
And the encore was fun: An audience clap-along on “Seventeen” and one of the night’s best, “My Speed,” with Bermiss adding a Stevie Wonder-sound-alike vocal – though it ended as you knew it would, with a long note from Price.
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