Sara Bareilles came to Bellarmine University’s Hillside ‘08 in Louisville on Friday night. Since her radio-friendly, commercial-heavy “Love Song” was introduced to us last year, she has stopped by twice. We were fortunate to get a full-scale show this time after her in-store Ear X-tacy show in January. It was nice seeing her on a proper stage. She approached her piano as though she could have been any student from Bellarmine University adorned in a skirt with suspenders. Sara has the kind of smile that makes every person in the crowd instantly connect to her and feel as though she honestly values them as both a person and a fan. Or maybe it was just me…I have a not-so-secret crush. At one point she told us we were all very attractive…I feel like she was looking at me when she said it though.
Her stage presence is incredibly genuine and heartfelt. When I say she could have been any student at the University, I mean that there were no real aires being put on…she was a girl next door type. If fans cheered at illogical times, such as when she said she was from LA, she’d call them out, saying “are you actually from LA, or you just like the idea of it?” When fans would scream “I love you Sara” during a quiet song, she’d respond “there are more appropriate times for that”. All of those remarks came across as endearing and incredibly sarcastic rather than rude. Partly it was because of that smile she’d flash while saying it. Mostly however, it was just simple recognition of humorous circumstances that artists rarely bother to make or at least vocalize. And with that in mind, she was very vocal, opening up to the audience and speaking quite freely. She seemed to me very comfortable on stage at times, while nevertheless being awed at the love and affection she received from the crowd, saying multiple times how great of an audience she had with facial expressions that seemed to indicate utter sincerity. I was worried that the openness of the outdoor show and the barrier between the stage and the fans might have inhibited the intimacy of the show…but it didn’t seem to phase it in the least. At one point after a guy had yelled after every lull between songs that it was his birthday Sarah finally addressed him only to have the crowd to sing our own version of the Happy Birthday song to another Sara or Sarah…the student director at Bellarmine University. Later she apologized for being political as she told us about the shirt she was wearing and how it was an organization called Eve’s Rib, an organization started by a friend of hers in LA to help young women cope with body image issues. She tells us that even she had body image issues at one point…I can only imagine growing up in LA that its pretty easy to have body image issues when every other girl is Barbie, plastic and all. I was speaking recently with a friend about how interaction and recognition of your audience can turn a good show into a great show.
Similar to the previous performance at Ear X-tacy, the crowd was about 95% female and upwards of 60% high school girls. While Rachel Yamagata hasn’t gotten the radio play that Sara has, she is an incredibly talented musician as well and I was surprised to see the shift forward only after her set. If everyone would have moved forward, perhaps that could have killed the horrific reverb caused by the enormous metal shed directly in front of the stage.
Similar to the Ear X-tacy show, Sara started the set off with Bottle it Up, but dissimilarly, she made her way through the entirety of the album, a few covers and a new one called “Magnolia”. She explained that “Many the Miles” was the result of her frustration with life and that the crowd favorite “Love Song” was the result of hate. She’d previously explained though that she’d written “Love Song” when her record was pressing her for a radio play-worthy song, because they didn’t feel the rest of the album had that marketable single they were looking for. Makes me wonder if she might have a love/hate relationship with that one.
For the encore, Sara came out solo and sang a few songs. The first of which was a hilarious cover of X-tina’s Genie in a Bottle (mp3 below). From there, she politely asked the obnoxious drunk and rowdy kids to quieten down so she could do her ballad, “Gravity”, as she laid her despair out for us to see.
Sara Bareilles - Genie in a Bottle (Christine Aguilera Cover)
For video & loads of photos,
Rachel Yamagata
Sara Bareilles
