walbourn

jeliza and I went to see Brandi Carlile at The Paramount Theater last night. So far we've seen her at the Woodland Park Zoo and The Moore near the start of her tour, and this was the last show of her US tour.

Parking sucked because it was a Friday night downtown, but the venue was good and the performance excellent. Brandi did a few songs on piano, a new element to the show, plus some favorites like a cover of Johnny Cash's Fulsom Prison. She did the intro to Bohemian Rhapsody to warm-up on the piano, which was a hoot. The tour was being sponsored by Biore of all things, and it's good to see her getting some well-deserved success. She's off to overseas gigs including Australia, but she did do three Seattle shows just this year so I've probably seen her enough for the moment.

The opening act was a band called A Fine Frenzy fronted by a young redhead woman. First impressions of Tori Amos come pretty quickly, but she lacks Tori's psychologically rich neurosis and the associated lyrics I love so much. She does have some solid vocal talent, and when doing torch-style heartbreak songs I was quite impressed. She did a bit of Fever as well.

I listen to a lot of chick rock so it's hard to avoid comparisons with other singers, and her vocal quality reminded me strongly of Fisher. Frankly I think her music is too 'sweet & innocent' to hold my attention for long, and a few too many of the songs included the annoying ding of the xylophone, but perhaps as they get older they will start writing some more interesting stuff. There was also a bit of the 70's prog rock sound at work with the keyboardist.

jeliza said she couldn't recall a female-fronted prig rock band, so perhaps their time as finally come... gods forbid.

In the era of 'iTunes' music I can always buy just the songs I actually like. She's one of those "Starbucks" featured artists, which I find distrubing. Then again, it's less distrubing than Wal-Mart controlling a fourth or a fifth of the world-wide distribution of CDs given their routine censorship.

In any case, an excellent concert and I didn't even feel too bitter about the $11 parking by the end of the evening.

Update: While I'm not sure I'd recommend the whole album, A Fine Frenzy's Ashes & Wine is prettty damn solid.

Update 2: I'm pleased to report the Glockenspiel problem was the sound mix at the live show. It doesn't sound nearly as annoying on the album :>