Sara Bareilles’s Long Island Birthday Show
By Seth M
What a great weekend for Sara Bareilles ~ nominated for her 4th and 5th Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance on Friday and a sold out 34th birthday show on Long Island on Saturday.
And not only was it a great weekend for Sara but for her fans as well. First they were treated to a 6 song set from Andrew Ripp, who started off the night relatively unknown and ended with 1500+ new fans. Andrew left the stage and after a very short break fans were blown away by the charms of Sara Bareilles.
The first time I saw Sara was in 2008 she was new on the music scene and I thought she had a great voice ~ but what was more impressive was her live show. Sara isn’t your typical pop star; take one of her biggest hits, “Love Song”, which is basically an “F.U.” to record executives. Sara, then & now, comes to the stage and puts it all out there: she tells stories, cracks jokes, makes fun of herself, screws up and ~ regardless of her audience (many of them young) ~ curses. Sara doesn’t hold back and her audience, young & old, love her for it.
Back to this being Sara’s 34th birthday and everyone acknowledging it. The Paramount even changed its marquee and posted this picture (left) to its Facebook page.
And her fan club made sure all the audience members had been given a slip of paper directing them to sing “Happy Birthday” when she returned to the stage for her encore. I should note that the crowd kept it a secret and the little surprise went off without a hitch.
Of course before making it to the encore, Sara put on a hell of a show; her voice sounded perfect and she was, as always, bubbly and playing with a band that was spot on. For the most part she remained standing behind the piano for the evening, playing all her hits and more. She did pick up an acoustic for “I Choose You” from her latest, Grammy nominated album The Blessed Unrest and my personal highlight of the evening was an amazing rendition of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” Not only is this one of my favorite Elton songs, but it truly showed what a talent Sara is. She closed out her set with “King of Everything,” followed by her more recent hit, “Brave.” Sara being Sara, she screwed up the beginning and let fly a “Fucking shit, oh my god, I can’t believe I just fucked that up,” but being a professional just went right back into the song and didn’t miss a beat.
The evening didn’t miss a beat either, as she returned to the stage for her encore, the previously mentioned Happy Birthday singing ensued and she was completely in awe. She accepted some birthday gifts from fans up front including posters, cards and a hat about which she exclaimed, “You know I love hats!” The surprises continued as her sister rolled out a big birthday cake and champagne as the crowd began singing again. Toasting her sister and then blowing out her candles, Sara started to laugh and shared, “I literally just put my hair on fire” and “This is really embarrassing,” then raised her glass, said “Thank you so much, cheers!” and played her last song to end the set.
Sara Bareilles is an awesome talent and this was a 34th birthday that neither she nor those in attendance will forget anytime soon. Fingers crossed she’ll take home 2 Grammys on January 26th but in the meantime, try to catch her live. She only has a few shows currently scheduled, so check out her tour dates and all her information at sarabmusic.com.
