Sometimes I wish was like...Kate Nash

I love Kate Nash.

I hate Kate Nash.

Yep. And how.

Actually, truthfully, I want to be Kate Nash. And not in a creepy psycho way, I promise. The girl is freaking adorable. I want her wardrobe. I want her hair. I want her beguiling smile and her pert little nose. And the lilt in her voice. (I don't actually want her boyfriend, though. I like his band and I go see them whenever they're in town, but he seems kind of dirty [the unwashed kind]—maybe it has something to do with seeing him three nights in a row where he spilled beer and bled on himself and wore the same shirt each night, with the beer stains. But really, it's all about personal preference, and this is not a judgment at all. My friends all would. It's just me. So really, it's lucky for him that I'm not her.)

Barring that impossibility, I want to be best friends with her.

And barring that, I'd like to shake hands with her. She's accomplished a feat that few ever do—expressing such basic and universal emotions, situations, insecurities, personalities, all those things, with such cutting incisiveness and disarming wit.

And then I'd like to ask her, "What the hell were you thinking?!" about the other half of her album.

It boggles my mind that an album that has such amazing and insightful songs on it, songs that inspired me to listen to just them on repeat for TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT, could have an equal number of just awful, cringeworthy ones as well. I guess no one's perfect.

This past year, I've had to suffice a lot with listening to bands' albums instead of seeing them live. I've listened to Kate on repeat a lot (as I mentioned) and I tried not to think about how I missed her three times in New York. Well, last night at the Bowery Ballroom, it was finally my turn.

And she's so charming and disarming and the songs of hers that I love I love so much that I'll probably have to see her every time she's here. And yes, I gritted my teeth through the awful songs, but looking up at her cuteness almost makes them bearable.

She started out with "Mariella," which is a good, bouncy opener.

Then launched into "Shit Song." No comment.

A b-side, "Stitching Leggings," followed, but the vocals were so low you couldn't hear her verbal gymnastics in the chorus very well.

I don't have the exact setlist (yes, I'm a bad blogger), but the rest included "Skeleton Song" (a surprise favorite of mine, considering I had no imaginary friends growing up, though perhaps I do now—Facebook holla!)

"Birds." Sigh. She sounds so wonderful singing it, and I love the adolescent awkwardness and the sweet story, but the actual chorus lyrics make me wince.

Hearing the opening notes of "Nicest Thing" is like getting punched in the gut. But in a good way. I have a friend who can't even listen to it because it resonates so true.

I think that the entire night was worth it, including the young audience making me feel over the hill and the two women behind us singing at the top of their lungs, off-key, not knowing all the words (I sing too, but when I don't know the words, I don't sing ones I've just made up), just to hear "We Get On" live. This song is me in a nutshell, in my hopeless crushes and patheticness and, I don't want to say obsessiveness, because it's such a strong word. But not in an embarrassing way. If it was embarrassing, someone wouldn't have written a song about it. And as Kate says, "I wish that I could tell you face to face instead of singing this stupid song." And that's enough for me.

"Dickhead" turned out to be a bit of a comedic song, since the people next to me started laughing. I just thought fondly of my friend who asked me to shout out for it and was glad I hadn't had to.

"This is my brain, its torturous analytical thoughts make me go.... insane." Amen, sista. "Mouthwash" is the song of hers that seems to get stuck in people's heads most often.

I will never get tired of hearing "Foundations." Live, recorded, home videos of us singing, what have you. This song is so good, that after telling me it wasn't worth $10 to (legally) acquire Ms. Nash's album at Virgin Megastore, a friend of mine backtracked and said, "Actually, it's worth $10 just for 'Foundations' alone." This is true. It's also true that after hearing this song the first time, as a friend asked me, I did think Kate was going to turn out to be edgier. But I like kitsch. So it's all good in the end.

Everyone's favorite but my own, including Grey's Anatomy, "Merry Happy" ended the main set. I can live with that.

For an encore she did the storytelling "Little Red" and then "Pumpkin Soup." Oh, how I think she needs a better closer. It's not just because I don't like that song at all. Okay, yes it is. I don't like it. I think that singing "Foundations" as the very last song would be better. But I'm partial.

I'm also partial to Kate in general. I can say that some of her songs are shit, but if you talk shit about her, you'll have to answer to me. And I'm from Brooklyn, so you really don't want it to come to that.