Coming off
two Grammy nominations (Album of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance), Sara
Bareilles is definitely in the big leagues now. Her performance Monday night
featured elaborate yet tasteful lighting and a video projection system that was
used advantageously on a number of songs. She began her 90-minute set with
“Little Black Dress”, and ended on a high note with “Love Song”, a well-chosen
En Vogue cover in “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”, “King of Anything”
(where she directed a two-part audience singalong), and “Brave”. She just had
time for one encore prior to the Wolf Trap curfew. In between, she featured a
number of other cuts from her latest album, including “Hercules”, “I Choose
You”, and “I Wanna Be Like Me”. I was impressed overall – great voice, which
she’s smart enough not to get too fancy with, and a good rapport with the
sold-out audience, many of whom seemed to be enthusiastic hard-core fans. My
one complaint was that the bass was mixed up so high that it was physically
painful – I could feel my chest vibrating on all but the most subdued numbers.
Emily King
started things off with a 25-minute neo-soul set that was pleasant if not particularly
memorable. (She does have the Janelle Monae hairstyle down though.) Lucius then
followed with an enthusiastically-received 38-minute set – the other 3 members
of my group all got copies of the CD. I had earlier bought “Turn It Around” in
iTunes after hearing it a few times on WXPN. (They’re also playing at the
station’s upcoming Exponential Music Festival.) My feelings about their set
were a little more mixed; except for “Turn It Around” and one or two other
songs, I felt a disconnect between their material, much of which featured
lovely vocal harmonies by group co-founders Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, and
the arrangements, where the “driving indie-pop percussion” (according to the
blurb in the program) featured as many as 4 members of the band simultaneously banging
on various drums, in an apparent effort to beat the defenseless melodies and
harmonies into submission. At its peak, it reminded me of nothing so much as
Adam Ant’s body of work from the 1980s.
Much of
the area had rain in the afternoon, but fortunately the weather had calmed down
for the show. It took us an hour both to get from Rockville to the Panera on
Leesburg Pike (really slow traffic on the Beltway), and to get back to
Rockville after the show (mainly the 38 minutes before we finally got out of
the far parking lot). It was good that I had read Wolf Trap’s “friendly event
reminber” email last week, since it revealed that the show would start at 7:30
rather than the originally-scheduled 8:00.
