“We were here a minute ago opening for Pink,” said Brandi Carlile early on in her Wednesday night show at Scotiabank Arena, explaining that that’s how she could go from playing Massey Hall last time she did a headlining show in Toronto to playing Scotiabank this time around. She went on to joke that they don’t totally deserve it – though based on the crowd’s reaction, they might disagree with her on that point.
While admitting that being on her first stadium tour is obviously a very cool thing, Carlile did confess to feeling some trepidation about the leap – I believe the exact phrase she used was “shitting herself.” So in order to make things feel a little more cozy, she and her longtime bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth resorted to what she called a “parlor trick” midway through the set: taking live requests from the audience. On this occasion, she took requests for “Caroline” and “Keep Your Heart Young,” both apparently ones that they don’t play too often. It was a nice moment that helped make the show feel unique for audience and band alike, with Carlile adding, “It’s such a grounding moment for me.”
Other memorable moments in Carlile’s set came from powerful performances of “Sinners, Saints and Fools”, “The Joke” and “Church and State” as well as a few well-placed covers – a beautiful version of Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time, ” her dramatic and suitably epic take on Alanis Morrisette’s “Uninvited” and a cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” that saw her joined by openers The Head and The Heart.
I’ll admit I was initially surprised to see Carlile making the jump to arenas. This is not to say that she isn’t popular enough to play such large venues or that she’s in any way undeserving – quite the opposite. She just seems like an artist whose music is best suited to much more intimate rooms.
As it turns out, Carlile proved herself more than capable of putting on a show big enough to fill the space, as evidenced by rocking numbers like “Mainstream Kid”, “Broken Horses” and the aforementioned Alanis cover. At the same time, she was able to make things seem a lot more intimate than one might expect from a venue more used to hosting hockey games or Metallica concerts, with tunes like “A War WIth Time” and “The Mother” standing out as some of the absolute highlights of the evening.
Carlile, however, seemed more than willing to share the responsibility for creating such intimacy with the audience, commenting at one point, ” You just made this big old place feel like Massey Hall!”
When all was said and done, Carlile proved herself more than capable of handling such a “big” room, not only holding her own on stage, but thriving.
