I’ve posted before about Sara Bareilles and how much I love her music. Last night, I had the chance to see her perform live at Scala in London.
The evening was opened by a guy called Rod Thomas. He played solo, and used looped recordings of various instruments to build up songs as he went, recording each one live, there and then. Rod’s a great singer with some very well written songs, and I am always impressed with a solo act who can create such a full sound all by himself. I particularly liked his layered harmonies in some of the later songs. Actually, he reminded me of a singer I saw when I was on vacation in Lake George, NY this summer – Rich Ortiz – who did similar things with looped and layered recordings.
Anyway, on to the main event – Sara and her band.
Let’s start with the sound quality. It was awesome. Everything was the perfect volume and the sound guys created a great mix that made every instrument and vocal nice and clear. The only criticism was that the band’s microphones were a little too quiet for the harmonies to cut through like they do on the record. The drums were mic’ed superbly, with a huge bass drum that you could feel in your chest, and excellent clarity from the snare and cymbals. Usually I am left disappointed by the drum sound or mix, but not on this occasion. The bass levels matched those of the bass drum perfectly to create a nice fat bottom end. The guitar stack was on the same side of the stage that we were standing so very occasionally the guitar was too high in the mix, but that didn’t matter at all.
The set list was a little shorter than I would have liked, but was excellent. Most of the tracks were from the album, with one Beatles song thrown in for good measure. The songs are so well written; they sound great on the CD, and easily as good live.
The band was awesome. Sara was backed by Javier Dunn on guitar, Josh Day on drums and (I think) Brian Allen on bass. All three are excellent musicians, and I particularly liked Josh’s work on the drums.
And Sara. Well, what can I say? Sara has such a fantastic voice. She has complete control, singing subtly in the sensitive phrases, open up to be strong and powerful when the songs build. There aren’t many artists today who sound this good outside of the protection of a studio, with all of its sound tools and multiple takes. There were certainly moments in the show where I had goose-bumps…
If Sara Bareilles tours in a town near you, do yourself a favour and go see her. You’ll love it.