Cold Specks @ The First Unitarian Church.

Text and images by Grace Dickinson.

It’s a rare and intimate occasion that you get to see a band play in the small side chapel of a church. From time to time, the First Unitarian, at 21st and Chestnut, presents such special events, like this past Friday with Al and Pete of Cold Specks.

“We’ve been on tour recently with our seven-piece band but we showed up here and realized that wasn’t going to happen,” said Al Spx, the Canadian front woman of the London-based group. “We decided to strip it down for you tonight.”

The performance wasn’t all that far off from Al’s last show in Philly when she took the stage all by herself at Johnny Brenda’s. At the time, Al was on a solo tour, a result of certain “circumstances and the expenses of touring,” as she explained.

This time around, she again performed several spurts alone, with guitar player Pete Roberts joining the audience to listen at one point during the night.

The side chapel’s 20 or so pews sat two to three people per row, and held likely one of the most respectful and quiet audiences of any concert I’ve attended. It was so quiet that each click of a camera felt like a snare drum rather out of rhythm. The band is known for stretches of sparse instrumentation, which became magnified even more so with just two members up on stage. The whole show had a very raw feel to it, almost like an acoustic session, despite both Al and Pete remaining plugged in.

Kicking off the night, and again multiple times throughout, the instruments went down and Al sang a cappella. In every instance, her soulful voice would radiate in the air that hung between the audience and the high ceiling of the church. Just like Al’s delivery, the entire situation felt powerful and novel, and her gospel-esque vocals felt rather fitting.

Cold Specks did get the crowd stomping and shouting out at one point when Al started singing The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s classic theme song.

“I tried that joke in Quebec the other day,” she quipped. “It didn’t work.”

At the end of a fairly short but memorable set, Cold Specks closed out just like they started – with Al standing on stage hugging the mic, bravely and boldly letting out lyrics sans any musical accompaniment. Unlike the opener, however, this time she stepped out of her signature black cloak, which had been draped around her the entire night.

“It’s my confidence cape,” she said.

With a voice like hers, it’s hard to believe she could lack any of that.