Who: Sara Bareilles with Elizabeth and the Catapult
When: April 17, 2011
Where: Koessler Athletic Center, Canisius College/ Buffalo, NY
With: Sarah, Gretchen
Of Note: Sara B unknowingly providing the soundtrack to my impending heartbreak
One Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk at work and Sarah came up to say hello. When I asked her what she was doing that week-end, she said that she was going to see Sara Bareilles at Canisius Sunday night. I thought to myself, "How did you not know that was happening?" and bought tickets online while one of the company's VPs talked to Sarah and I from the other side of my desk.
Sunday night, I drove the 8 minutes from my house to Canisius and found the girls inside. I always find it hilarious when they cover gym floors with plastic. I also thought it was adorable that "concessions" was a folding table in the back of the gym. I don't remember too much about Elizabeth and the Catapult, except that I thought they were good and that the guy was a cutie.
Though I was familiar with most of the tracks from 'Little Voice', I only knew the radio singles from 'Kaleidoscope Heart' going in to the concert. That totally didn't matter; Sara is such an engaging performer that even the material that was new to me was riveting.
Her set started with the sound of a heartbeat pulsing, which launched right into 'Kaleidoscope Heart'. There was just so much good about her performance and how the show was constructed. Sara was funny, engaging, conversational. She kept telling us that we were a great crowd and that she wanted to take us all with her on the rest of her tour dates. The setlist was perfect - old favorites, current singles, songs from the new album, a well placed cover or two. From her enthusiasm over her bandmates to her sparkly shirt, Sara totally won me over. (The only very, very minor quibble was that I would have loved to have heard 'Fairy Tale'. That she would go on to be a 'Sing Off' judge cemented her place in my heart forever.)
Highlights included a stripped down, raw version of 'City Lights', with a charming story about how that song helped her when she was just getting started in LA, an awesome Mumford & Sons cover where the whole band stood in a semi-circle and broke it down, and a split the audience sing along to the "oh oh oh oh" parts of 'King of Anything'. (I love an audience call and response sing along so, so much.) (Shocker.)
The material from the Kaleidoscope Heart album was good...and had such an overlying tone of melancholy. The song that stuck out the most was one called 'Basket Case'. Sara moved to the side of the stage and accompanied herself on guitar; I commented that it was, "possibly the saddest song I've ever heard." It was beautiful and haunting and real.
I went home that night and bought 'Kaleidoscope Hearts'.
Exactly two weeks later, Zak and I broke up because after too many years together the correct answer to the question, "Are you ever going to marry me?" was not, "I don't know." I was a trainwreck. I was overwhelmed with sadness, disappointment, inadequacy, longing, heartbreak. That night, I was packing up his stuff from my apartment so he could pick it all up while I was traveling during the week and I put some music on to try to distract myself from my misery. And there it was - 'Basket Case'.
I know I talk a lot about how lines of music have the capacity to drill into your soul. There's a line in 'Basket Case' that says, "He's not a magic man, or a perfect fit/ But had a steady hand and I got used to it". And in 20 words, Sara Bareilles succinctly communicated what started as 12 hours worth of tears and would go on to be a few months of despair. And then, 'Gonna Get Over You' - "I'll be alright/ Just not tonight" - provided what nobody could, what I couldn't yet give myself...hope.
Over the next few months, the album 'Kaleidoscope Heart' came to be a friend, when all my friends were sick of me. I don't do heartbreak well, you see, and I hate to wear out my welcome. And sometimes, there are just no more words; I couldn't talk or think or process...but I could listen to this album, so beautifully crafted and so perfectly reflective of what I was feeling, what I wanted to feel. I developed an almost Pavlovian response to those songs, feeling so intensely every time I heard one.
I know there are people in my life that don't understand what it is about me and music, why I'm so enthusiastic about what I love, why I can get a tad bit obsessed, why I wish my life were a musical. I think that the power of music is just this - to succinctly capture the human experience and deliver it to you in such a way that you can be comforted. To know that what you're feeling is universal, so universal that there are songs about it. To know that, even if it was a professional musician who you will never personally know, someone else has felt this way. And when all else fails, and you just can't bear to feel that way anymore, you can give your feelings to the music so that you don't have to deal with them.
It took a long time for me to "be alright", but here, one year later, I am.
When: April 17, 2011
Where: Koessler Athletic Center, Canisius College/ Buffalo, NY
With: Sarah, Gretchen
Of Note: Sara B unknowingly providing the soundtrack to my impending heartbreak
One Friday afternoon, I was sitting at my desk at work and Sarah came up to say hello. When I asked her what she was doing that week-end, she said that she was going to see Sara Bareilles at Canisius Sunday night. I thought to myself, "How did you not know that was happening?" and bought tickets online while one of the company's VPs talked to Sarah and I from the other side of my desk.
Sunday night, I drove the 8 minutes from my house to Canisius and found the girls inside. I always find it hilarious when they cover gym floors with plastic. I also thought it was adorable that "concessions" was a folding table in the back of the gym. I don't remember too much about Elizabeth and the Catapult, except that I thought they were good and that the guy was a cutie.
Though I was familiar with most of the tracks from 'Little Voice', I only knew the radio singles from 'Kaleidoscope Heart' going in to the concert. That totally didn't matter; Sara is such an engaging performer that even the material that was new to me was riveting.
Her set started with the sound of a heartbeat pulsing, which launched right into 'Kaleidoscope Heart'. There was just so much good about her performance and how the show was constructed. Sara was funny, engaging, conversational. She kept telling us that we were a great crowd and that she wanted to take us all with her on the rest of her tour dates. The setlist was perfect - old favorites, current singles, songs from the new album, a well placed cover or two. From her enthusiasm over her bandmates to her sparkly shirt, Sara totally won me over. (The only very, very minor quibble was that I would have loved to have heard 'Fairy Tale'. That she would go on to be a 'Sing Off' judge cemented her place in my heart forever.)
Highlights included a stripped down, raw version of 'City Lights', with a charming story about how that song helped her when she was just getting started in LA, an awesome Mumford & Sons cover where the whole band stood in a semi-circle and broke it down, and a split the audience sing along to the "oh oh oh oh" parts of 'King of Anything'. (I love an audience call and response sing along so, so much.) (Shocker.)
The material from the Kaleidoscope Heart album was good...and had such an overlying tone of melancholy. The song that stuck out the most was one called 'Basket Case'. Sara moved to the side of the stage and accompanied herself on guitar; I commented that it was, "possibly the saddest song I've ever heard." It was beautiful and haunting and real.
I went home that night and bought 'Kaleidoscope Hearts'.
Exactly two weeks later, Zak and I broke up because after too many years together the correct answer to the question, "Are you ever going to marry me?" was not, "I don't know." I was a trainwreck. I was overwhelmed with sadness, disappointment, inadequacy, longing, heartbreak. That night, I was packing up his stuff from my apartment so he could pick it all up while I was traveling during the week and I put some music on to try to distract myself from my misery. And there it was - 'Basket Case'.
I know I talk a lot about how lines of music have the capacity to drill into your soul. There's a line in 'Basket Case' that says, "He's not a magic man, or a perfect fit/ But had a steady hand and I got used to it". And in 20 words, Sara Bareilles succinctly communicated what started as 12 hours worth of tears and would go on to be a few months of despair. And then, 'Gonna Get Over You' - "I'll be alright/ Just not tonight" - provided what nobody could, what I couldn't yet give myself...hope.
Over the next few months, the album 'Kaleidoscope Heart' came to be a friend, when all my friends were sick of me. I don't do heartbreak well, you see, and I hate to wear out my welcome. And sometimes, there are just no more words; I couldn't talk or think or process...but I could listen to this album, so beautifully crafted and so perfectly reflective of what I was feeling, what I wanted to feel. I developed an almost Pavlovian response to those songs, feeling so intensely every time I heard one.
I know there are people in my life that don't understand what it is about me and music, why I'm so enthusiastic about what I love, why I can get a tad bit obsessed, why I wish my life were a musical. I think that the power of music is just this - to succinctly capture the human experience and deliver it to you in such a way that you can be comforted. To know that what you're feeling is universal, so universal that there are songs about it. To know that, even if it was a professional musician who you will never personally know, someone else has felt this way. And when all else fails, and you just can't bear to feel that way anymore, you can give your feelings to the music so that you don't have to deal with them.
It took a long time for me to "be alright", but here, one year later, I am.
Oooh, that's good! Thinking back, I think she also covered Coldplay's "Yellow" and Cee Lo's "Forget You", both also superb.
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