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By BRENNAN SARICH
Staff Writer

“Wow, it got all quiet all of a sudden,” says Janet Panic, as the crowd eagerly awaits her set at the Aborginal Day’s Roots to Rock show at the Horsehoe Tavern.

Janet stands on stage wearing a purple summer dress and she looks classy and has a certain rock-star quality to her. As she starts strumming her guitar, she mentions that the song she’s about to sing, “Blink,” is all about living in the moment. The song is a blend of tongue-in-cheek lyrics and life lessons, from lovers you wish you could sleep with to moments gone by. As she starts getting into her music, her voice has a honeyed quality to it, and she has a sexy rasp to her voice that lingers at the end of each refrain. The song ends and she tells the crowd a little bit about her songwriting process.

“I write some songs with my little brother and the next song was about his high school sweetheart he couldn’t get over. They connected on Facebook, and now they’re getting married. This is kinda like a, a voodoo love song.”

And it’s very sweet song. Janet’s strength seems to be in saying the most striking and precise things about relationships in a sweet way, good and bad. Her next song after that, “The Scent He Left Behind,” was just about that, the moments where you want to keep those small pieces of a person that they leave in your life.

By the time she hits her stride in “Not Over You Yet” she’s belting out the kind of vocals that would fill a stadium, and it’s a clear rich sound.

“I’m a Lousy Wife” is yet another example of Janet’s harder vocals that have slightly cheeky content. She ends her set with “You look Good Naked,” which, as Janet says, “is what you don’t get to see until the very end, is usually how it goes, right?” And it’s a good way to end the set, with a bluegrass and rock feel.

Janet’s performance was a mix of bluegrass, rock, and folk. She’s definitely worth watching in concert.