A short post from the road...

I am on the road to the Renaissance Festival in Holly, MI with the family. We are bringing my older son's German girlfriend, who has never been to an American ren fest, which I assume are much larger and extravagant than their European counterparts.

I haven't been to the RenFest since before the pandemic. I'd become a bit turned off by how enormous the crowds had become, and I will likely feel the same after today...but who knows. I'll let ya know later.

Brandi Carlile at the Huntington Bank Pavilion, Chicago (August 6, 2022)

It was another emotional, powerful, brilliant, utterly captivating performance by the Brandi Carlile Band, at Huntington Bank Pavilion on Chicago’s lakefront.

As usual, I was a puddle of tears during “The Story,” “The Joke,” and “Party of One.” Brandi’s voice and words (though it was Brandi’s bandmate Phil Hanseroth who wrote “The Story”) just go straight to my heart like few other musicians are capable.

There were so many highlights at the show, so I will just list them as I think of them, in no order.  There was the alternately soaring and shit-kicking “Broken Horses,” the always shit-kicking “Mainstream Kid” (my favorite Brandi rocker), the Hanseroth twins (Phil and Tim) opening the show with their dueling guitar “Twintro,” Brandi and the twins singing three-part harmony on “The Eye,” opening act Celisse joining Brandi and the band for rousing covers of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Radiohead’s “Creep,” the second opener (and legend) Ani DiFranco joining a worshipful Brandi for Ani’s “32 Flavors,” Brandi paying further tribute to uber-legend Joni Mitchell with a slow gorgeous version of “Woodstock,” the perpetually po-faced Evangeline Carlile (Brandi’s daughter) joining the band for the sing-a-long “Hold Out Your Hand,” and finally Brandi making everyone cry with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

The music podcaster Yasi Salek (Bandsplain) likes to use the phrase “goddamn gorgeous beautiful” to describe any song that particularly moves her. I love this expression and use it frequently, to the point where Yasi may want to trademark it. Anyway, it was a goddamn gorgeous beautiful Brandi concert on Saturday night in Chicago.