Sometimes Facebook will be creative and surprise you. Yesterday while playing my daily dose of Wheel of Fortune (yes I'm a dork. Get over it!), I saw a small ad on the side of the page. Normally, i disregard those ads because they're pointless and have no interest to me. However, that one got me going. It was an ad for Brandi Carlile's new album "Live at Benaroya Hall. I hadn't known she'd be coming out with any new albums this year. I thought "Give Up the Ghost" that came out last year would be it for a while. So I was pleasantly surprised when I clicked the link and it took me to a look associated with iTunes and I could check out the album. It is a live album (as the album title suggests) which made it even better.
I had the chance to see Brandi live last year in Boston (at the House of Blues) and it was a fantastic experience. I had gotten into Brandi's music back when her debut album was released in maybe 2007 or so because dad had found out about her (i think through Pandora or something like that). I have say, my dad has pretty good taste in female indie artists. I will definitely give him credit for that! Anyway, he came with me to the concert an it was a lot of fun. Brandi is one of those rare artists that sounds just as good live as she does in a studio recording. I have to believe it takes a lot of raw talent and musicality to be able to be that good. Hanson is the only other band I know of that share that musicality. She puts on a great show. She interacts with the crowd and feeds off the crowd. I remember at the show, she performed one of the new songs off "Give Up the Ghost" called "Dying Day" (which is my ringtone for my dad on my phone incidentally) and they did it completely unplugged. No microphones for the vocals or the instruments (just a violin, guitar and maybe cello or base) and the entire room of like 3,000 people got quiet enough you could hear it all clearly in the back of the venue (we were near the front). It was the most impressive thing I've ever seen happen at a concert.
Anyway, this new live album was definitely on par with the live show I'd gone to. It had all the same elements of excitement from the crowd and from Brandi her back up singers (Timmy and Phillip a.k.a. The Twins). But this time, she was also backed by the Seattle Symphony. That added an additional layer of quality. The instrumentality wasn't that different but it was backed by flutes and violins and the rest of the orchestra and it made some of my favorite songs even better.
She also did a few covers ("Forever Young", "Hallelujah" and "Sixty Years"). The Twins also did a song just the two of them. A rather kick-ass cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence". When it first began playing I actually thought 'why are Simon & Garfunkel taking over Brandi's concert?'. The guys can SING! And they're both tenors and have enough range that they blend beautifully with Brandi. Of the covers that Brandi sang, I think I liked "Hallelujah" most. I am partial that song anyway (having heard it sung by a few other groups, including a pretty decent a Capella group called Blue Jupiter). I think the thing that made Brandi's version so great was it was backed by acoustic guitar and violins mainly.
Of the songs from her previous albums that she included on this live record, I have to say I'm torn between "The Story" and "Before It Breaks". They're from her second and third albums respectively. Some artists change their sound between albums, but Brandi has remained consistent in her tone and range. I like "Before It Breaks" on this particular album because she really gets the crowd involved. She splits the audience up into three groups and gets them singing. I remember doing that at the show we went to. It was lots of fun. If she plays a small venue in the Boston area again, I would most definitely see her. I findhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif her overall stage presence to be endearing and genuine. She really is grateful for her fans.
If anyone is interested listening to Brandi's latest vocal stylings, you can go over to her website and check her out. She's doing a tour as well in the mid-west right now and moving across the country.
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