Skip to main content

Day Eighty Six

Oh, What A Show! I'm going to try and incorporate a Top 5 Moments list in here too (because it's been too long), but it may well run long, so...

1) A looping pedal... used with a CELLO!

That's right, Josh Neumann had a Cello with a pickup in it, and used a freaking looping pedal with it! He was the first one onstage after the opening act, so that wound up being the first official moment of the Brandi Carlile portion of the gig, and Oh, What A Way To Start!

2) "Crazy"

Brandi & The Twins did a short 25 minute set with just the three of them (she described it as an "acoustic barnburner" set, before taking a break and coming back with the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra. While the barnburner set was fun (and I secretly wished they had gone on longer), she closed that part of the show with "Crazy," written by Willie Nelson, and performed originally by the amazing Patsy Cline. It was just Brandi, acoustic & vocals, and was incredible! Not since Patsy have I heard a more breathtaking version of that song.

3) "Folsom"

So, after we stomped and hollered for an encore, she came back out and told us we were "the most rock & roll crowd she'd ever heard in a symphony hall. Then, they ripped into Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues." I've heard and loved the version from her "Live In Boston EP" (perhaps the best 99 cents I've ever spent on iTunes), but last night's version put it to shame. Extended solo breaks and all, it was arguably the highlight of the night.

4) "Pride & Joy"

Coming directly after "Folsom," it was the song that caused me to fall in love with her music, and as amazing as it is on record, what they do with it live now is... transcendent. They stretched it out into an even more epic song, and rocked it up in the middle. Brandi even switched guitars. And with both her & Tim on electric, backed by a symphony orchestra, plus bass and drums, it was breathtaking.

5) Brandi herself

Not only does she have amazing talent & amazing stage presence, she also seems to be a phenomenal human being. It was their last show before a month off, and when she announced she'd be doing a meet & greet after the show, I was pumped... then I saw the line... it was gigantic. That being said... she stayed until the ENTIRE line had been seen & spoken with, AND, she autographed multiple things! I've never met anyone famous who was more generous with their time, and more giving to the people who came out to see her. I would definitely go anywhere to see another show.

And for those of you waiting for the extra one...

6) could be so many things... the setlist I scored from the stage, the people I talked to at the show, the chat I had with the official photographer that might net me some pictures from the gig, the theater-wide three part harmony she taught us for "Turpentine" (I was in the section that got the really high part), the solo acoustic version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" that closed the show... I could go on...

Definitely the best show I've ever seen in my life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dat Two Hundred Thirty One (Year Three)

So, apparently the new Airborne EP that came out yesterday is MP3 only!  Downloaded that as soon as I figured it out this morning, but didn't have time to sync the ipod after doing so.  Therefore, I naturally had a ton of time to listen tonight that was away from my computer. On the plus side, though, I was able to spend some of that extra time with a guitar in my hands, working on the chord progression for this month's song.  I've got an opening chord change that I really like, and the flicker of a two guitar approach, with one of the two parts capoed up the neck dancing somewhere in the back of my brain.  If all goes according to plan, it could work out really well. Also, finally over halfway in the Grohl bio.  Considering I was hardly home at all today, I feel like I got a decent chunk of that read. Tomorrow should (hopefully) be another decent day for music, with a chance to play in the evening, and enough time for a few runs through the Airborne EP....
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Twenty Seven (Year Two)

So, the new Springsteen disc is amazing.  There's enough of a mixture of his upbeat rockers, his ballads, and his message songs to make this his best record since The Rising .  And speaking of that record... Buying The Boss the day it comes out always takes me back to a specific moment in life.  It was July 30th, 2002, the year after 9/11, the year after someone on the streets of New York told Springsteen "we need you now."  I had driven to Oshkosh, WI to visit some friends, when I remembered that Springsteen's disc was scheduled to come out that day.  I drove downtown to The Exclusive Company, but had to park a few blocks back.  At the time, there wasn't much going on downtown, but when I got out of the car, I could hear this music coming from up the block somewhere.  The closer I got to Exclusive, the more it began to dawn on me, they had set up a giant set of speakers in their upstairs windows, and were blasting the new album out into the streets....
Post a Comment
Read more

Day Two Hundred Thirteen (Year Five)

Finally!  A really good day.  And one that I really needed after the frustration with the rest of the weekend. I took a step back from a few things today, and got what I hope will be a bit of clarity in the process.  Instead of worrying about the progress I really haven't been making on the EP, I told myself that I needed to be happy with the few bits of lyric I stumbled across today, and that maybe I needed to focus my attention elsewhere, at least for today. I had picked up a really cool book on music theory as it applies to guitar last Tuesday when I was out and about, and having spent a little bit of time paging through it over the last few days, I focused in on it tonight and started reading, taking notes, and reinforcing some things.  It felt like progress.  It was great. When I had worked through some of that, I moved on to the whole "100 Riffs" thing, and got myself moving on that again.  It's astounding how much I can get inside my own head a...
Post a Comment
Read more