India, Oct. 16 -- A waiter in Bengaluru shook his head from side to side when Cat Power asked if there was milk for her tea. She told us this from a stage in Helsinki; mused on whether "no" is expressed the same way elsewhere; and decided, probably not.

She was in Bengaluru? That was the bit that surprised me. After the gig, I looked it up, and learnt that she had visited in 2007, not to perform but to work with the non-profit Charity: Water.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. On a recent Wednesday, Charlyn "Chan" Marshall aka Cat Power, the indie rock icon known for her minimalist yet deeply emotional music and haunting husky vocals, sang all 12 songs from her 2006 album The Greatest, live and in sequence. Exactly as they are on that bre...