Showing posts with label Brandi Carlile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brandi Carlile. Show all posts

7.25.2010 - Brandi Carlile @ The Kent Stage

The Brandi Carlile show in Kent was hands-down one of the best we've ever seen.  The Kent Stage is an old converted movie theater - really a pretty small, intimate place for a seated show.  This show had been sold out for a few weeks, and even a capacity crowd of 600 felt pretty minimal.

We got there a few songs into the opener, Good Old War's set.  These three guys played some good music!  Their vocal harmonies are really great.  I'd call their sound something like folky/country/rock.  I saw quite a few people sneak out in between sets to grab their CD, so we weren't the only ones who enjoyed them.  Really a great band to get the audience prepped for Brandi's set.

Then a very special treat - Brandi opened the show with "Again Today", a hidden track from her 2007 album "The Story" (and the song behind the name of her unofficial fan club - you probably remember the mention of ATers in the previous post).  In the 15+ Brandi Carlile shows we've been to, it's one of the few songs we haven't heard live - and it was perfect (even given the fact that I had to block out the girl next to me singing every word - good for you, you know the song, but I didn't pay to hear you sing it!).  Brandi then mentioned that she spent extra time putting together the set list since they had been to Kent just over a year prior, and didn't want to play all the same songs.  She also apologized if she was wearing the same outfit, since she couldn't find any video on YouTube to verify.

They also graced the audience with the completely unplugged version of "Dying Day", which is one of my personal favorites, and the outdoor setting for the Symphony show the night before didn't lend itself acoustically to performing that song.  The band also did "Shadow on the Wall", which is a rarity as well.  Somewhere in the middle of she show, she also told the story about how she was a superstar in Portugal for a while because "The Story" was the music in a beer commercial.  She was playing a giant festival, and one guy held up a sign stating "The story of my life is I make you baby".  Hilarious!

And if all that weren't enough, we also had the pleasure of hearing "Way to You", from the "XOBC" EP.  The band doesn't play these songs live very often, and it is one of my favorites.  We also got to hear the twins, Tim and Phil Hanseroth cover Simon and Garfunkle's "Sound of Silence".  Their harmonies in that song are impressive - and it was amusing to watch them try to be serious through the whole song while singing so close to each other.

After that, the mad rush of people toward the stage began - I'm honestly surprised most people waited that long!  Throughout the whole show, there was more of a conversational atmosphere in the theater - people really just saying whatever they thought of loudly from their seats.  Certainly not 100% the rowdy bar crowd, but not the usual super-subdued theater crowd either.  Could have something to do with the fact that it felt like The Kent Stage had no air conditioning...it was hot and stifling in there the entire time - thank goodness for a surprisingly cool and refreshing Midwestern evening outside!

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Saturday, July 31, 2010 Posted in | , , | 0 Comments »

7.24.2010 - Brandi Carlile and The Indianapolis Symphony @ Symphony on the Prairie

The Saturday night show for Brandi Carlile and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchaestra might have been one of our biggest highlights of the year. The first time Erica and I saw Brandi was when she played with the Louisville Orchaestra and it was simply amazing. And Saturday night, amidst the heat and threat of oncoming storms, Brandi did not disappoint us.



This was Brandi’s second night of a 2 night engagement with the ISO at Conner Prairie. The first evening included a longer set and also an appearance by Tiffany Carlile (Brandi’s sister) to sing “Calling All Angels.” Also, Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls came down from Chicago to catch the Friday night show and was gracious to a few fans who recognized her.

But I digress…for anyone who hasn’t been to Symphony on the Prairie before, what you must realize is that usually this is an event where people bring their kids, their wine, and their lawn chairs for a relaxing evening that just so happens to have music in the background. With this in mind, I’m not quite sure the usual symphony crowd had any clue about the sheer madness that can ensue at a BC show. It was fantastic.

The symphony took the stage and started playing “Sixty Years On,” an Elton John/Bernie Taupin classic that originally featured a brilliant arrangement by Paul Buckmaster. Since Elton is one of Brandi’s biggest influences, this was a perfect opener for this show and Brandi’s strong, emotional vocals executed the song perfectly.


Brandi then brought out the rest of the band and launched into “Looking Out,” which included some orchaestra arrangements. It was so great to hear some of the songs from the “Give Up the Ghost” album with the symphony flare. Of course, Brandi and the band had the crowd (and even one of the guys in the violin section) dancing when they began “Closer To You,” and then the Beatles’ “I’ve Just Seen a Face.”


Quick note: at the Symphony on the Prairie shows there is a little concrete section right in front of the stage, where normally people don’t really stand because the sound isn’t so great. Of course, with Brandi fans, the closer you can get, the better is normally their way of doing things. So, while we stood in the front for a while to snag some highly contraband pictures, we enjoyed being away from the stage to hear the fullness of the band and the orchaestra.


“I Will” was a highlight for us with the symphony, simply because the song has such powerful lyrics and it just worked so perfectly with the full orchaestra. Brandi and the band played “Caroline,” which we have only seen one or two times, since the piano arrangement was played by Elton John on the album and the only person who has come close to nailing it live was Vienna Teng on the Cayamo cruise. But the band did it sans piano and I was certain that Phil (Hanseroth, the bass player) was going to smash the guitar as he was playing it because he plays with so much energy!


When the band began “Dreams,” the group of fans called the “ATers” (for AgainToday.com, the unofficial fan community) treated Brandi and the entire crowd to a little choreography they came up with for the song.


One of my favorite moments of the symphony shows has been “Turpentine.” At this point, Brandi tells the audience that they are going to split them up and teach everyone the 3 part harmony in one of the bridges of the song. She has Tim Hanseroth (guitar player extrodinare) teach a part, Brandi teaches another, and Phil teaches the crowd the high part of the harmony, which always gets a laugh. The crowd then sings together and it is phenomenal…and as if it can’t get any better, the build up to the chorus with the symphony playing gives me chills every time. It is amazing. Brandi even said that when she gets to do symphony shows that she sometimes forgets the words because she just loves to listen and forgets that she has to sing. We could understand why…


“The Story,” my personal favorite Brandi song, again, sounded phenomenal paired with the symphony arrangement. Since the threat of the oncoming storm was among us, the set was shortened up with no “fake encore,” as Brandi calls it. The band launched straight into “Jackson/Folsom Prison Blues” and had the crowd dancing away. At one point, I looked over to see an elderly couple dancing to the song and it warmed my heart.


Perhaps the most phenomenal part of the show and the part I was looking forward to the most was “Pride and Joy.” On “Give Up the Ghost,” this song is powerful and is a bit “rock-opera”-ish. It’s dramatic and emotional…it needs a symphony to feel complete. And the ISO played it brilliantly.


To end the show, Brandi told the crowd that she knew this was a kid-friendly place, so she was trying to not swear. She wanted to end the show with a kids song and played “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It was like the perfect ending to a perfect movie.


This symphony show did not disappoint us at all and I think a lot of people that were not familiar with Brandi before the show, are now interested in her music and what she offers to the music world.

Note: Perhaps the only thing missing from the show was “Cello-tallica,” a cello solo by Josh Neuman, but we would be treated to this on the next evening at the Kent show (that review is up next.)

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Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Posted in | , , | 1 Comments »

6.12.2010 - Bonnaroo, Day 3 - Manchester, TN

We'd been looking forward to this Bonnaroo day for a while...it was finally Brandi day!!  We are big Brandi Carlile fans, if you couldn't tell...  So naturally, we got to That Tent at 10:30 - over 3 hours prior to Brandi taking the stage at 1:45.  We gathered a filthy black sheet and someone's discarded "Neat Sheet" to cover up some sticky lemonade that someone had spilled by the rail at the front, then sat down to hold our spots for the show.

Langhorne Slim played right before Brandi.  He's a singer/songwriter, and puts a hell of a lot of energy into his live shows.  This guy was bouncing around constantly - moving all over the stage from standing on the speakers set up in front of the stage to jumping off of the kick-drum.  At one point during his set, a kid wearing a "Langhorne Slim" shirt appeared onstage.  The kid jumped around with him during a song, then stood up there awkwardly until the band tried to shoo him offstage, and a guy in the photo pit had to help him down.
Then it was time for Brandi Carlile and crew to take the stage.  It is easily the hottest of Bonnaroo days thus far, and within minutes, Phil has sweated through his long-sleeve button-up shirt.  They played a typical bar or theater set, with the exception of the acoustic portion.  That just wouldn't have resonated with the venue or the crowd.  The band had a great energy level, even though they were sweating their asses off.  Tim had on a great shirt - it had some Hebrew lettering, and underneath it said "Shalom Y'all".  Hilarious!  Here's the setlist from that show:
It was so miserably hot after that show, that we decided to hang under the broo'ers tent and take advantage of the shade.  We heard some of Norah Jones' set, and The Avett Brothers, but the heat and threat of thunderstorms was enough to keep us from wandering closer to the Which Stage to get a better listen/view.

We headed to the Sonic Stage for the acoustic version of Brandi Carlile's set after cooling off.  The crowd was a LOT smaller there, and Brandi, Tim and Phil played a great five-song set.  The lady in charge of introducing bands on this stage was a crack-up.  She kept saying how great the band was, and how "sassy" Brandi is.  A very odd word to describe her if you ask me, but then again, no one did :)

After a short period of rain, we made our way back to That Tent to catch some of John Prine's set.  We aren't familiar with his music, but there were some true die-hard fans there to see him.  From what I gather, he's a legend in country music.  This was the place to find a lot of the older Bonnaroo crowd on a Saturday afternoon.

Then it was time to head to the main stage - the What Stage for Stevie Wonder followed by Jay-Z.  Stevie Wonder still sounds amazing.  He is one of those guys that sings a TON of popular songs that you don't even remember are his until you hear him belting them out just as impressively as he did 20 or 30 years ago.  He really is an instution in the music industry.  The lawn area was packed for his show, and we had quite a few high and crazy dancers around us, which was the only thing detracting from the experience.

We only stayed for a few songs of Jay-Z's set, but he sounded good as well.  Instead of Alisha Keys, some random female vocalist sang with him on "Empire State of Mind", but she was pretty decent.  Not a bad way to end another great day of music at Bonnaroo.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Posted in | , , , , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments »