Concert review: Brandi Carlile at Peace Center

We were two hours and 22 songs in, and if Brandi Carlile had announced that she was staying to perform another two hours, I would have stayed, too — and I’m sure I wouldn’t have been alone. The audience at the Peace Center on Oct. 8 hung on every lyric sung and word spoken at the second of three solo acoustic performances (the others at DPAC in Durham and the Ting Pavilion in Charlottesville, VA) the songwriter offered up in the middle of her current tour.

There may not be a songwriter more prepared for the big time than Carlile. Her career — and extremely loyal fanbase — had been building steadily since her 2007 album The Story, but it exploded with 2018’s By the Way I Forgive You, which included the show-stopping social commentary gut-punch, “The Joke.” The song brought all of her talents to bear — writing, showmanship, musical vision, and her otherworldly voice — and there was no looking back.

Non-stop sold-out shows, curating her own festivals in Mexico and Washington State, a live performance of Joni Mitchell’s Blue at Carnegie Hall — Carlile saw the moment and seized it. Before the release of “Right on Time,” the first single on her latest album, In These Silent Days, she tipped us off as to what she had planned in an Instagram post:

“It’s been nearly four years since we released ‘The Joke’ into the world and it changed our lives forever.It’s taken me a long time to create and believe in another song in the same way I believed in that song. I knew that I would take as long as I needed even if it meant years… and it did.”

In These Silent Days is huge. The production on the album is so layered with orchestral sounds, giant rhythm sections, and electric guitar fills that it sometimes seems like it’ll be too top-heavy to let Carlile’s vocals through. But it doesn’t do that because, at the end of the day, you can’t compete with that voice. Still, the first few listens made me think In These Silent Days sounded like Brandi on Broadway as she reached that final tipping point into diva territory. 

So when she announced that her show at the Peace Center was going to be a “special solo show,” I was genuinely curious. Being among the devout but not having seen Carlile live before, I was up for whatever party she was throwing. But I still wondered: Why the break away from the big show?

I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Onstage with only a guitar in hand and piano in the background, she opened by playing “Follow,” from her 2005 self-titled debut, and then told us her reasons.

“That was the very first song on my very first album, and that’s what I want to do tonight. I want to go back to the beginning of myself,” she said. Following her wild-ride 2022 tour, Carlile said she began to feel like a great big rock star, with the strut of Elvis and the makeup of Bowie.

When she gets that feeling, she said, she tells herself: “You know, I really need to do some solo shows and get back to the artist that I am underneath the blue eye shadow.” Even standing on stage all by herself made her nervous in a way that being there with her band didn’t, she said, and her hands would probably shake through the first few songs.

“I know how this is going to go,” she added, smiling. “And I am into it.” 

If there was any shaking, it didn’t show. Carlile moved through songs from her entire catalog, and even with the musical cues lodged in my head from numerous album listens, I wasn’t distracted by the absence of her band. Her voice and guitar easily engulfed the hall of the Peace Center whether she was picking a heartfelt ballad like “I Belong to You” or banging away at “Raise Hell.” As I mentioned before, I am a fan, so grant me some room to fawn when I say hearing Carlile hit vocal peaks in “The Joke” and “The Story” in person was mind-blowing and breathtaking.

Even in front of 2,000 fans, Carlile managed to keep the show feeling personal and intimate. She connected her stories to her music, revealing just how autobiographical her songs are, whether about the birth of her child (“The Mother”), her father’s alcoholism and recovery (“That Wasn’t Me”), her daughter’s tenacity (“Letter to the Past”), or her home and marriage (“You and Me on the Rock”). She joked and confided to her audience, and even when she flubbed a chord on the piano, she shared a chuckle with the crowd over it. 

For two hours, we were among her friends and family, and especially so when Carlile’s wife, Catherine Shepherd, joined her onstage for a duet on “You and Me and the Rock,” and a cover of Tracy Chapman’s “The Promise.”

Following a three-song encore and a last-minute request of “This Time Tomorrow,” Carlile waved, blew kisses, took bows and exited to a standing ovation, capping off a truly moving and unforgettable show.

Later in October, Carlile will join up with her band again in Boston, where I’m sure she will blow minds and draw tears, and then it’s off to Mexico in January for her Girls Just Wanna Weekend festival. But even after she puts the blue eye shadow back on, we won’t have to wonder whether she is the bigger-than-life rock goddess singing to the rafters, or the flesh-and-blood songwriter scratching out lyrics and subject to the same hurts and victories as the rest of us.

It turns out she can be both at the same time.

Setlist

Follow
Broken Horses
Mama Werewolf
The Things I Regret
I Will
The Eye
The Story
The Mother
That Wasn’t Me
I Belong to You
You and Me on the Rock
The Promise (Tracy Chapman cover)
Raise Hell
Letter to the Past
Right on Time
The Joke
Throwing Good After Bad
Pride and Joy

Encore
Murder in the City (Avett Brothers Cover)
Party of One >>> A Case of You (Joni Mitchell cover)
This Time Tomorrow

(Photo by Neil Krug)