Watch Kevin Morby Join Waxahatchee For Songs: Ohia Cover At Hometown Birmingham Show

Katie Crutchfield performed a hometown concert with her band Waxahatchee last night at the Lyric Theatre in Birmingham, Alabama. Crutchfield’s long-term partner, fellow singer-songwriter Kevin Morby, came out at the start of the encore for a collaborative cover of a Songs: Ohia song.

Waxahatchee’s name comes from Alabama’s Waxahatchee Creek, which is located roughly 50 miles south of the Lyric Theatre. Monday’s concert was in support of Waxahatchee’s well-received album, Tigers Blood, which came out in March. The bulk of the main set consisted of selections from Tigers Blood, with members of the opening band Good Morning once again helping out on the set-closing take on the title track “Tigers Blood.”

As they have several times prior, Morby and Crutchfield began the encore by dueting on the haunting “Farewell Transmission.” The song was written by the late Jason Molina, who recorded music as Songs:Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., and under his own name. Molina sadly died in 2013 at age 39. Crutchfield and Morby recorded “Farwell Transmission” and released it as a single in tribute to Molina in 2018.

“If an alien were to come down and ask me to show them what indie rock was, especially from the ’90s or early 2000s, perhaps I would play them this song first,” Morby told NPR at the time.

“It’s such a daunting thing to do: Cover a really long song with all those lyrics and all that nuance,” Crutchfield told NPR. “I knew that there would be no real way to do it exactly like Jason Molina and therefore, it’d be exciting to make it our own.”

Watch Kevin Morby and Waxahatchee cover “Farewell Transmission” last night in Birmingham: