Brandi!!!

I saw Brandi Carlile this past Saturday, and she was every bit as awesome as I’d hoped. She played for nearly 2 hours (which does not include the time taken by the also good opening act Greg Isakov), and seemed to be having a great time. She said that she loved New Jersey about a million times, and avoided making any Jersey Shore jokes, which I really appreciated. At first I thought that maybe she says that everywhere, but she did stay for a really long time, so even if she tells every crowd that they’re her favorite stop on tour, I don’t mind. Plus, maybe wherever she is is her favorite place to be. Some people are easy to please like that. I took a boatload of pictures, many of which didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped, and a couple of videos. The first, of “Dying Day,” which is my favorite song on her newest CD, Give Up the Ghost, was by itself worth the price of admission, since she did it entirely unplugged. The second, “Caroline,” was interrupted by an overzealous security guard, but that actually ended up being okay, since if I’d gotten the entire song, I would have run out of space on my memory card; I had 20 megs left when I got home, and that was with me deleting especially awful pictures right after I’d taken them. Close call! So many thanks to OSG, without whom I wouldn’t have my best shots of the night, which came toward the end of the evening.

Dying Day

Videus Interruptus: Caroline (Or maybe Caroli–!)

Jason Mraz at Mohegan Sun, July 31, 2009

As I said earlier, I really enjoyed Jason Mraz’s concert on Friday at Mohegan Sun. He really seemed to enjoy himself, and performed for nearly two hours. He did sets on both a large main stage, and then a more intimate acoustic stage. I thought I’d died and gone to aural heaven. It was pretty awesome. I don’t have the set list yet, but I’ll update this post when it’s available. I’m guessing that at least one person in the packed arena taped the concert, so I’m providing a link to Mraz’s 2009 concerts download page. If you’re not familiar with his taping policy, Jason Mraz allows tapers to record and upload every show that he does (provided the venue doesn’t prohibit it), so there are hundreds of his shows available from archive.org.

Mraz 2009 shows // Mraz concerts by year

His energy was amazing. He sang his heart out, and he sounded great. I’ve definitely heard him sound a little worn out or hoarse, and that was not the case this concert. He did a great reggae-influenced version of “The Remedy,” and then did this energetic cover of Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long.” He also performed my new favorite song, “Never Too Late (The Only Life You Can Save).” This version was different from the one he did in England and Ireland, and honestly, I prefer the way I initially heard it. He left out my favorite line, “Be glad to be along for the ride.” I want to say “burn” every time I hear that, and think it would be a shame if it didn’t make the final cut. On the train on the way up, I listened to one of his concerts from 2001, and heard early versions of “The Dreamlife of Rand McNally” and “Better,” and definitely felt that I enjoyed what they became more than what they started out as.

I could not stop smiling and dancing during this concert, and am so glad that I decided to go to it. I’m sorry that I’ll be in California during the rest of his New York and New Jersey concerts, and that I can’t go to the Boston concert I expected to see, but this was such a great concert that I really can’t have too many regrets.

Also: you’ll notice that I finally broke down and made a Jason Mraz category. I figure that if I’m going to talk about him this often, I should just make it clear that ~80% of my music posts are going to somehow involve him.