Sara Bareilles at the Chicago Theatre

When pressed last winter to choose an artist to represent the letter B for my desert island A to Z Music Challenge, I didn’t pick The Beatles. I went with Sara Bareilles, one of those musicians who I admire and envy in equal parts, her talent so off the charts that it almost seems unfair. My wife and I attended her performance last night at the Chicago Theatre for her Good Grief tour, and just like the two previous times I watched her perform, Bareilles showed why she’s one of the most gifted singers and songwriters of this century.

Focusing primarily on selections from her new album, she explored grief and all its messy implications while still managing to be funny, relatable and uplifting between songs. Unlike some performers, Bareilles comes off as the genuine article: sincere, appreciative, funny and self-deprecating, and she enjoyed playing off an audience that included many young girls in attendance. That didn’t stop her from dropping a few F-bombs along the way, but I doubt there were many parents who minded. When it comes to strong female role models for young girls, you couldn’t do much better than Bareilles, who’s been champion women’s empowerment for decades now.

Even by the time I took my then-15-year-old daughters to see Bareilles in 2013, it felt like she had played an important part in their upbringing. Our little family musical group had already performed “Love Song” and “King of Anything” at a couple of block parties, and I admired that her songs presented a strong, independent woman who’s unwilling to accept putdowns and mansplaining from her partners, while also expressing vulnerability when it comes to navigating the uncertainties of life and the desire for real connection. These threads continue to appear in her work – perhaps with more urgency given our country’s current climate – and you might not find a more important lyric for a young girl than those from her new song, “Hands Off My Body.”

Still, I don’t love Bareilles’s new album, Good Grief. As brave and ambitious as she is lyrically, she plays it very safe musically. There isn’t a chord on the album that I couldn’t have predicted moments before, and I’d be hard-pressed to recall a melody from any of the songs, many of which resemble those of other artists: “Capsize Me” sounds too much like Sheryl Crows’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” and “Idiot Heart” summons Air Supply’s “Lost In Love.”  Still, there’s no denying the performances on the album, and I’m genuinely moved by the storytelling that so deftly captures the sundry emotions tied to the grieving process, from heartbreak and anger to acceptance and gratitude. Good Grief isn’t a bad effort at all – it’s just not as impactful as it could have been.

For last night’s concert, each member of Bareilles’s exceptional 6-piece backing band occupied different landings of a stage that was framed by what looked like the outline of a house, with rudimentary walls and rafters that lit up at various points throughout the show. Prior to the performance, the entire stage was draped with a light, white fabric that lifted just as the opening song “Home” began, the first track from Bareilles’s first studio album since 2019. This fabric was draped in various ways throughout the show, hovering above the stage and rippling with texture, allowing it to take on whatever color shone on it. It was a very basic but effective stage design, both spartan and visually appealing.

And Sara’s voice – well, dang. If someone had any inkling of doubt about her vocal prowess beforehand, they certainly don’t now. She is so skilled at doing whatever she chooses to do with her voice that what might be considered risky for some singers comes off as effortless. Every tool in her vocal arsenal was executed to perfection, with the lone exception of briefly forgetting a few lyrics, including one from the lone cover of the evening, Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Beyond that, most of the concert was made up of the Good Grief album, interspersed with just a few of her older tracks, including “Armor” and “Many the Miles,” before ending the concert with five of her mainstay tracks. I was hoping to hear “Chasing the Sun” and “Satellite Call,” but hey – you can’t have it all.

Though when it comes to musical chops and on-stage charisma, Sara Bareilles might lead you to think otherwise.

Yes by Any Other Name

It’s gotta beat Steve Howe and four other guys calling themselves Yes.

On Saturday night in Chicago, former Yes-men Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman – along with bassist Lee Pomeroy and drummer Lou Molino – performed two hours of Yes music at the a three-quarters full Chicago Theater, and judging from the audience response, this was the version of Yes they preferred. Wakeman in particular has long-claimed that any Yes without frontman Anderson is no Yes at all, though there are probably some who say the same of guitarist Steve Howe, who continued to tour last summer under the Yes moniker even after Alan White suffered a back injury. Perhaps one day Howe and Anderson will perform on the same stage together, though it’ll have to be soon: Anderson is now 72, and Howe 69.

Balancing the setlist nicely between long-time Yes favorites and songs from the Rabin-era, the transition from prog-rock to pop and back again at times felt jolting, but it also kept the concert from falling under its own weight of self-importance. The group performed four songs from Yes’s resurgent album 90125, one from 1987’s Big Generator (“The Rhythm of Love”) and one from Union (“Lift Me Up”), which allowed Rabin to shine in more familiar territory. Oddly absent were any songs from 1994’s Talk, an album many Yes fans believe is underrated. (I am not one of them.)

Beyond that, the setlist consisted of many of the usual favorites, along with two songs I’d never seen performed live before – a shortened “Perpetual Change” and “Heart of the Sunrise" – and the concert pinnacled with an extended performance of the already monumental “Awaken” from Going for the One, clocking in at close to 20 minutes.

The band performed well together, with drummer Molino approaching the songs with the same rock-oriented technique of Alan White, and Pomeroy doing a terrific job imitating the deceased Squire, including a terrific bass solo during “The Fish.”  But the standouts for me were the voices of not only Anderson – whose vocal chords should one day be donated to science – but of Rabin, who sounded as strong and clear as he did when I last saw him perform 32 years ago.  The newly-added song “Changes” off of 1983’s 90125 allowed him to showcase his chops, and I was surprised to hear him deftly hit the high notes during the bridge. Anderson had to at times choose an alternate melody to the original (the first bridge of “And You And I”), though he seemed to be able to summon his high tenor voice when it counted most.

Wakeman sported a Cubs t-shirt underneath his signature cape – a wardrobe that might have warranted groans were it not for his well-known comedic nature – and surrounded himself with a keyboard setup that wouldn’t have looked out of place in 1972. I counted eight keyboards, including two Minimoogs, which is really kind of silly in this day and age, but there’s no denying his ability and influence. Still, to my ears, he’s a keyboardist who overplays, muddying mixes that would otherwise sound crisp and clean (and I can't stand the synthy-piano sound he prefers to the real thing), which is why it’s probably best that he wasn’t a part of the 80s Yes lineup. There were times in the show when I wanted him to stop playing so I could hear a signature Rabin or Squire lick, though I did notice that the mix from where I was sitting in the balcony was less clear than just one section to my right, so some of the what I heard might have been attributed to poor acoustics more than Rick’s playing.

Rabin primarily handled the licks of Steve Howe well, though there were times when I missed Howe’s subtleties, such as the intro and breakdown of “And You and I,” and the jazz-influenced solo of “Perpetual Change.” Rabin is a different type of guitarist, and Anderson told him from the get-go to approach the songs in his own way.  Mission accomplished, and largely successful.

I suspect this will be the last time I see any of Yes’s members perform, be it under the name Yes, ARW, GTR, Bruford-Moraz or otherwise. I saw some semblance of Yes perform in 1984, 1985 (Bruford-Moraz), 1986 (GTR), 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2011 and now 2016, not officially as Yes, but in my book Yes by any other name is still Yes.  It’s been a hell of ride for these prog-rockers. Perhaps someday soon it can culminate with an induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Carol Burnett at the Chicago Theater

It’s true. I paid more on Tuesday night to watch an 83 year-old woman stand on a stage for 80 minutes than I did to watch Paul McCartney transfix an audience for 170 minutes back in 2013. A silly decision, right? Perhaps not if you consider that standing on stage was the iconic Carol Burnett, whose 70s variety show captivated my childhood’s Saturday nights, and who is as sprightly, funny and personable in her later years as she was back in her hey-day. 

Performed at the Chicago Theater, the evening was an extension of the Q&A sessions that often began The Carol Burnett Show, interspersed with video clips of some of the show's more memorable moments. Ushers with microphones and flashlights spread out over the theater, and audience members – after the initial gushing that was as inevitable as it was graciously received by Burnett – asked questions, ranging from what inspired the performer to succeed, to “Would you sing me happy birthday?”

I’d heard Burnett on NPR’s Fresh Air a year or two ago, and she told some of the same stories on Tuesday night, but with a methodical pacing that sounded fresh, as if she were sharing the tale for the first time: how she tried to pay by check absent an ID at a posh Manhattan department store, how she and Julie Andrews played a prank in a D.C. hotel that led to meeting Lady Bird Johnson, and how she first met her future co-star Vicki Lawrence when the latter was just seventeen. 

Audience members asked questions that naturally led to predetermined video montages that Burnett deftly segued to when the time was appropriate, and they often generated the hardiest laughs, as no doubt many in the audience were reliving their childhoods or their young adult years, when for a time Saturday nights included All in the Family, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show. I’m not sure you could come up with a better three hours of television. But as funny as many of the clips were, for me there was also a slight pang of loss, as face after face of entertainers no longer with us graced the screen.

I miss them, and hell, I even miss the dead variety show format, though I understand why it no longer exists, and I understand that we remember the best bits and forget the cheesy and underwhelming song and dance numbers. But on Tuesday night, though far too short – another fifteen or twenty minutes would have been appropriate – it was the best bits.

Review: Jackson Browne in Chicago

At sixty-six, Jackson Browne could easily phone it in and play concert after concert of the certified hits that came with regularity during the first decade and a half of his 40-plus year career, but on Tuesday night at the Chicago Theater he went a different route, playing deep cuts and new material along with a few crowd-pleasers for a balanced and effective show. 

Beginning with 1996’s “Barricades of Heaven,” 1972’s “Looking into You,” and two songs from his new album Standing in the Breach, it was apparent that this wasn’t going to be a greatest hits show, and the evening was all the more rewarding because of it.  Browne stitched his new material seamlessly with his older tunes, which you could take one of two ways I suppose: 1) his new material is as strong as his old material; or 2) his new material explores the same territory he’s been exploring for decades.  It’s probably a little of both, but when you have an absolutely stellar band with equally stellar sound backing you up, and you’re reciting lyrics like: The seeds of tragedy are there/In what we feel we have the right to bear… well, I’ll take a little familiarity with my new Jackson Browne.  All told, he performed seven songs from his new album.  If you had asked me beforehand if that was a recipe for a successful evening, I would have demurred, but to my ears many of the new tunes were as strong as the old ones.

After being assaulted at several arena shows lately, I was thrilled to be able to hear every instrument on stage without reaching for the earplugs, and I spent much of the evening admiring the guitar work of Val McCallum and Greg Leisz (who played dobro, guitar and lap steel), both absolute monsters at their instruments, and one got the feeling that Jackson Browne had as much fun watching these guys display their craft as he did singing his compositions. 

Alternating between guitar and piano throughout the evening, Browne sported an all-black outfit (as did the rest of the band), and the stage lighting bathed the musicians in shades of violet, with occasional splashes of color to enhance various songs, most notably the desert shades of “Leaving Winslow,” a song Browne introduced with a childhood memory of playing on a trestle bridge with his buddies and flattening pennies on the railway.

Early in the second set, Browne asked, “What would you like to hear?” and after a deluge of requests, he answered, “Yeah, I thought so.  But after that what do you want to hear?”  But as far as I could see, the request resulted in only one audible, the 1980’s hit “In the Shape of a Heart,” and the rest of the evening proceeded much as his previous concerts in Philadelphia and New York. 

I knew I could leave a happy man after Browne performed 1993’s “I’m Alive,” albeit a whole tone lower than his studio recording.  It became apparent during the show that keys had been adjusted to accommodate Brown’s aging voice, but that said, his signature mellow tone still sounded excellent, and I got the feeling that he could have hit the high notes consistently had he been forced to.  If there was one complaint about the evening, it’s that the band played on a similar energy level throughout with little in the way of dynamics; even some of the rockers came off sounding country.  But this is a minor quibble, and for the last selections of the concert, Browne broke into crowd favorites and rocked a bit with “Doctor My Eyes,” “The Pretender,” “Running on Empty” and “Take it Easy.”

As I was buying junk food at Walgreens after the show, a woman behind me said to her boyfriend, “I was hoping for ‘Late for the Sky.’”  I was too, but I give Browne a lot of credit for playing so much new music that was actually worth playing and worth hearing.  He continues to sing about the stuff that matters, from the Haiti earthquake, to politics, to the Gulf oil spill.  We need guys like Browne to continue to fight the good fight and to be willing to put new music at the forefront.  I'll take that over a greatest hits show any day.

Ben Folds Five in Chicago

Ben Folds Five are twelve years older since their last tour, but the trio didn’t miss a beat on Sunday night at the Chicago Theater, filled to approximately 80 percent capacity (the band had just performed in Chicago last June).  Supporting their first album since 1999, the band leaned heavily on material from their first two albums, including several surprises that kept even the die-hard fans satisfied.

Occupying only half the stage, Ben Folds, Darren Jessee on drums, and Robert Sledge on bass, ripped through six songs from The Sound of the Life of the Mind, the most effect being “Erase Me” and “Draw a Crowd,” both of which fit in relatively well with the older material.  Folds admitted that they were in a sense rehearsing “Do it Anyway” for the next day’s performance on The Colbert Report, but despite this being the strongest song from the new album, it fell a bit flat live.

I tried prepping my three kids for the concert by playing songs I expected Ben Folds Five to play, but I couldn’t have foreseen “Missing the War,” “Selfless, Cold and Composed” and “Emaline,” and although the inclusion of these lesser known tracks might have made the show more difficult for the uninitiated, it was highly satisfying for long-time fans.  The most surprising inclusions were the Darren Jessee-penned “Magic,” a heartbreakingly beautiful song from The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, and “Landed,” the only song the band performed from Ben Folds’s solo era.

The distinctive backing vocals that defined the band’s sound in the 90s were tight and on key, so much so that I wondered if some auto-tuning might have been employed at the mixing board.  Either that, or Jessee and Seldge they’ve gotten stronger as singers over the last decade.  It was a pleasure watching Jessee go about his business without fanfare on his minimalist set, though his cymbals were too loud and shrill in the mix, and Sledge, a bit more stocky than back in the day, looked especially happy to be back on stage with the band, and it was hard for the audience not to feed on the good vibes.

When someone from the audience requested “Rock this Bitch,” Ben began an impromptu composition that addressed the request, guiding his bandmates by announcing the chord changes.

The crowd-pleasing “Army” finished the regular set before the band returned with “Best Imitation of Myself” and “Underground,” two of the best tracks from their first album, and “1 Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” ended the evening to a standing ovation. 

I am not a big fan of the new album, and I think the show highlighted how much stronger and more relatable their first two albums of material are than their second two.  Lyrically, little of the new album makes a lot of sense.  It’ll be interested to see if Ben revisits these songs with any regularity in the future either with the Five or as a solo artist, or if they’re relegated to a 2012 time capsule.