Sara Bareilles Concert

Image by Cody Bralts

A not so quick post on the amazing, amazing Sara Bareilles concert I attended last night at the U of I Foellinger Auditorium. If you are a Sara B fan, you MUST see her live. If you can't see her live, then buy her Live at the Filmore DVD to get a flavor of her live performances. I think she sounds better in a live venue, less constrained musically, and her voice, it is just amazing.

On her Gravity tour, Sara is playing small, intimate venues, and apparently, the 1750 seat Foellinger Auditorium is much larger than most of the other venues. But I don't think that mattered - Sara and her band chit-chatted with the audience and each other, giving the accoustic show a very personal feel. Sara did share that once this tour wrapped up, she will head back into the recording studio (yay!).

A quick run down of the concert / songs she sang:

• A song about the end of the tour? I hadn't heard the song before. Sara on piano. Edited to add: after some research, found out the song was "Undertow", from her Careful Confessions CD (that you can't seem to get anymore hoping they will re-release the whole thing or add the songs to the next album)
• Fairtale - Sara on piano
• Sara brought out the members of the band - they performed One Sweet Love, with Sara on the ukelale (Ingrid Michaelson influence here - ref Winter Song).
• Sara shared her U2 - Bono moment and to commemorate, performed a cover of U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. I thought it was funny.
• With Sara back at the piano, the band launched into my favorite song of the night, Come Around Soon, which segued into Vegas.
• The greatest departure of the night was a jazzy rendition of Bottle It Up. No quaint "Love, Love, Love" introduction here. It sounded like a new song until about 2/3rds into the song. Just goes to show you Sara isn't some manufactured pop princess.
• New song, upbeat Gonna Get Over You
• Many the Miles, which she encouraged the audience to sing along.
  
• Love Song (probably the song performed with the least amount of departure from the studio recording - she probably hates this song.)
• Her initial set closed with a cover - of all things - Umbrella by Rhiana, with Sara playing ukelale again. I didn't even recognize the song until the chorus! A little cheeky but fun.
• Of course, she sang two encores - first, a cover of Bruce Springsteen's I'm on Fire. She performed this as a duet with Tony Lucca, the guitarist who opened for her.
• Finally, her last song and tour's namesake - Gravity. A perfect song to end the evening's concert.

I took some pictures, many came out blurry, but I'll try to see what I can make them into. I wasn't really allowed to bring my "professional camera" into the event, so I was discreet about taking pictures. Instead, I enjoyed the performance.