A Late Night with Kara Jackson
Article and photos by Max Moroz
Late on Saturday, July 20, crowds flocked from Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park to Kara Jackson’s official after show at Schubas Tavern. After her full-band performance at the festival that afternoon, the 24-year-old Chicago-native used the Schubas stage to strip down her songs to just her and her guitar.
Kicking off the show was June McDoom, a reggae-influenced folk singer-songwriter from Southern Florida. Performing songs from her two EPs, June McDoom (2022) and With Strings (2023), McDoom’s finger-plucking on guitar paired with the lush, melancholic backing track set a ghostly landscape for her dreamy, reverbed vocals. She closed her set with the haunting, “On My Way”, which transformed the venue into what felt like the devastating ending sequence to a 1960s movie.
Kara Jackson (left) and June McDoom (right)
Kara Jackson took the stage soon after, looking effortlessly cool in her neon pink bob and matching dress. She opened with a cover of Karen Dalton’s “Right, Wrong, or Ready” before heading into her own collection of folk masterpieces. It has been a huge year for Jackson—her 2023 debut album, Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love?, was met with wide critical acclaim including the prestigious “Best New Music” title from Pitchfork, in addition to a glowing 8.2/10 review from the music publishing giant. This album is equally full of vulnerability and earnestness, and her performance at Schubas was a perfect demonstration of the rawness that body of work contains. Her performances of tracks like “therapy” and “brain” showcased her wide vocal range, hitting rich and resonant low notes and evoking a wistful poignancy throughout. On her song, “no fun/party”, Jackson interpolated SZA’s anthemic “Love Galore” between her own verses, seamlessly blending the iconic track into her evocative writing style. This was a hometown show for Jackson, and the crowd was full of not only her friends and family, but also supporters who have followed her for years. With an adoration of Jackson already seeping throughout the venue, she truly took on the role of a comedian between songs, charming the crowd with banter about the latest season of Love Island, her love for Animal Crossing, and even a story of her being kicked out of Schubas when she was a teenager. She candidly shared throughout the set that it was far past her bedtime, which the audience found endearingly funny, laughing along with her witty remarks bookending her melancholic songs. Jackson closed her set with “Ray”, and while her songs do not answer the question posed in her album's title, she left the audience with new ideas and a lingering wonder of why the earth gives us people to love.
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