Last week I got to see a Ingrid Michaelson show! She’s one of my favorites so I was really excited to go. I got there a little late (in the middle of the opening band’s set) so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get a good view, but I managed to wedge myself in the perfect balcony spot.
She played most of the songs from her latest album, Human Again, including Black and Blue, The Sea, Blood Brothers, Ghost, Ribbons (she taught the crowd how to do back up vocals for this one), This is War, and Fire. However, she also played a lot of old favorites, like Soldier,Overboard, Giving Up (I think, I kind of went on an Ingrid binge right before the show and sometimes they all loop together in my head), and The Way I Am. She even sang a song called San Francisco, that she’s never actually released on an album.
When she sang The Way I am she talked about how after it got popular she hated that song for a while. She got tired of people coming up to her and asking if she sang the “Rogaine” song. So when she sang it she did a different arrangement than the radio version (she said singing it this way helped her love the song again).
She played with her band and then sent them off stage while she sang a few songs by herself. She did her cover of I Can’t Help Falling In Love This Way. She also played the guitar and the piano for a lot of her songs.
The lighting made it hard to get a good picture, but see? See that blur? That's Ingrid playing the piano.
Ingrid playing the guitar.
For the encore (She was cute about this, she said, look I don’t have tricks up my sleeve so here’s how it’s gonna work, we’re going to play our last song, leave, hopefully you’ll applaud and cheer, and then we’ll come back on) she played some of my absolute favorites including The Chain and You and I. For You and I she invited the opening band, Harper Bylnn, back on stage and then gathered everyone (including her band) around the microphone to sing the song. She had the audience do the stomp clap for the end.
Harper Blynn and Ingrid Michaelson + Band singing You and I
I had a great time and was happy the tour stopped by Salt Lake so I could go. Ingrid was a great performer, as was Harper Blynn. You could tell they all genuinely liked each other and were having fun. Plus it was fun to see a little bit of what Ingrid Michaelson’s personality was like. She was nice the whole time, even when people tried to sing along wrong (When she did the different version of the The Way I Am everyone kept automatically singing along the way it’s played in the standard version), haha. And she seemed really grateful for her fans; she said that she loves playing SLC because the crowd always gives her an applause “cushion” and that when people stop clapping and politely wait for her to start she feels like she needs to awkwardly fill time by talking about her boring day. Then she said cushion like 5 more times and decided that it sounded like a disgusting word, and thanked everyone for being “sweaty little cushions,” haha.
Hopefully this summer has more great shows and concerts in store!
Currently: having some sister time :)
Bedelia 