No opening act, just Brandi Carlile and co. at the Montauk Lighthouse this week, after a brief, biographical intro by Katie Couric. This was a fan fest for Carlile, who has many fans following around the country from venue to venue from Florida to Colorado, wherever she takes them. This was that kind of crowd at the Montauk Lighthouse under stars and accompanied by the sound of the sea.
From her new album, “Returning to Myself,” she sang the title song with its refrain, “It’s the only thing to do,” channeling Joni Mitchell with whom she apprenticed. As one fan told me on the port-o-potty line, “That’s just her thing. She honors the women vocalists and song writers before her, Tanya Tucker, Bonnie Raitt. But in the end, she makes it her own.” She sang Bonnie’s, “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
And it’s not only women. She loves Elton John, with whom she made a Grammy nominated album. She shouted out to Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with whom she worked on the album she made with the Rocket Man, and sang, “Who believes in angels anyway?”
She sported a shirt especially purchased for this gig, with a lighthouse on its back. Before she called out for a jacket the night air cooled—”well, you all know there’s a lighthouse on my back,” she sang about her British partner, who could be condescending, she quipped: “Sometimes you meet a woman overseas and sometimes a woman oversees.” She sang about being a mother to Evangeline and Eliza, dressed up in blue, who were enjoying the music and the sloped venue outside the historic lighthouse monument. It was the perfect night down to her twin sidemen Tim and Phil doing “Sounds of Silence” with Carlile swooning behind them as they serenaded her and us.
She had us in the proverbial palm of her hand. She knows her people. And for a good part of this generous performance she asked for requests that came like clockwork: such as “Dyin’ Day.” I especially loved her take on motherhood, cherishing the moments of separation that lead to their ultimate growing up and away: “You Without Me,” “Welcome to the End of Me/ I Am the Mother of Evangeline.” Brandi Carlile may be as much beloved for the wisdom she brings: “Time makes every one of us an absolute cliché.”
She said the thing she wanted to see most in New York was a cockroach, and she did, suggesting the fleabag hotel of her first arrival. LOL. Time may have passed but nothing about her feels tired.
