Brandi Carlile Live at Interlochen
Posted by Troy | Filed under Music
Last night we took our 8-yr-old daughter to her first real concert… she is a totally right-brained kid who loves art and music so I knew she’d love it and I had been looking forward to this for a really long time.
Since I’d seen Brandi Carlile last summer I knew she’d be a great first-concert experience for my daughter… and of course I was right.
The evening opened up with a pretty decent performance from The Watson Twins. I’d have to say the highlight of their show was their two covers, “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and “Just Like Heaven.”
Of course those happen to be two of my all-time-top-ten favorite songs, ones of such magnificence that I’d get emotional even if Rosie O’Donnell was performing them.
The twins did much better than Rosie would though and their Neil-Young-Cripple-Creek-Fairy take on The Cure was pretty dang cool. (check out the not-quite-as-hippie version in my playlist)
But when Brandi took the stage it was like time stopped.
The last time I’d seen her perform she was all alone. A guitar and that’s it…
This time she came with her band, which I had some trepidation about since she was so amazing without them, but my fears immediately subsided when I discovered how seamlessly they all played together. I loved how through the show they continually mixed it up, with half the songs hootenany-style and a few even without the use of microphones, amps or speakers.
Only a voice like Brandi’s could shoot straight into your soul from 50 yards away without a mic.
The fact is, if you love music… whether you’re into hip-hop or metal or country or classical… even if you’re a jazz snob… I can almost guarantee you’d love Brandi Carlile’s show.
The sound of her voice alone will almost certainly crumble the walls around your heart like Jericho.
I honestly could have left after her first song having felt totally satisfied with the experience… but I’m glad I didn’t, because one song after the other I couldn’t help but think “oh man, this is the best part,” only to find out minutes later that I was wrong.
The weirdest part of the show was the vibe of the audience. The art-center crowd sat quite silently in their seats for the entire show (except when under specific instructions from Brandi to stand up for her raucous cover of Johnny Cash’s classic “Jackson.”) clapping and woo-hooing moderately after each piece (I even got “shooshed” at one point).
However, when I accepted the atmosphere as more chamber performance than rock venue it was actually kind of cool. The lack of laser-beam stage lights and moshing kids gave it a sort-of Austin City Limits feel that was intimate and refined.
And in a very anti-rock-show way you could make out every lyric. Which honestly (besides her voice) was the highlight for me.
Recorded or live, I always lose it when she sings the line “some people get religion, some people get the truth.”
and when “Have you Ever” asks “have you ever been out walking in the snow?” you could almost hear the audience’s collective thought “uh… yeah, this is Michigan…”
but it’s her biggest hit “The Story” that always manages to strike me directly between my eyeballs, and in fact I may just adopt it as the official song of Strong Odors:
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to tell them to
It’s true…I was made for you
Tags: brandi carlile, concerts, Music, original illustration
3 Responses to “Brandi Carlile Live at Interlochen”
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melanie Says:
August 25th, 2010 at 7:48 pmi know i would have loved it as well. i am so glad Sadie had a good time.
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Tiff Says:
September 12th, 2010 at 11:11 amGeesh. I get goosebumps just reading about it. I am so painfully jealous. Those are some of my favorite lyrics as well… and so true… stories are meaningless if we don’t have any one to share them with
So cool that Sadie got to go… I love her sweet little voice
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Robbie Says:
December 18th, 2010 at 10:30 amDude thanks for not saying anything about the whimpering jackass sitting next to you crying all over your shoes.
