Brandi Carlile- June 3rd, 2010 at House of Blues Atlantic City

You may have been following our tweets, but if you weren’t here’s the rundown on Brandi Carlile in Atlantic City the other night.

Opening the show was Vienna Teng, with The Paper Raincoat’s Alex Wong on percussion and vibes. We really enjoyed their set, but couldn’t help but feel they were playing the wrong room. We’d like to see them at Passim or World Cafe, but the House of Blues just wasn’t their venue. That being said, they didn’t let the obnoxiously drunk crowd faze them. They played the two songs we knew of Vienna’s before the show—”Gravity” and “Harbor”, both of which were beautiful—as well as a great tune called “City Hall” about civil unions. The highlight for us, though, was their cover of Radiohead’s “Idioteque”.

Brilliant cover! We’re still not sold on her being the best choice to open for Brandi Carlile, but then again, she’s yet to pick openers we think rival her. Maybe that’s the point. Here’s Vienna’s setlist, which isn’t in total order and maybe not complete. We know she definitely played:

Augustine
Antebellum
City Hall
The Tower
Gravity
Harbor
Idioteque (Radiohead Cover)
Grandmother Song

(One gripe: We couldn’t stand “Grandmother Song”. We don’t like clapalongs.)

Now, on to Brandi.

As we mentioned earlier, the crowd for this show was rather obnoxious. One blackout drunk woman persisted to welcome Brandi “back to the States” throughout the whole show, apparently unaware that Brandi is a citizen of this country. Other drunkies populated the audience, professing their devotion to BC and her various band members without end. We grew tired of it pretty quickly, but tried not to let it bother us. Though at moments like the unplugged version of Dying Day (video below), we couldn’t help wanting to kick them all in the shin.

Brandi looked and sounded great, and the band was on fire as always. But we couldn’t help but notice the show was nearly identical to the one we saw in October, right down to set arrangement. We see Brandi pretty often, so that might explain this small problem. Also, if it ain’t broke, why fix it, right? Highlights for us were the beautifully stripped-down version of I Will and the distorted version of Before It Breaks. Most notably though, we loved hearing The Twins do “Sound of Silence”.

So lovely.

We of course had a great time at the show, and loved running into our friends from AgainToday. Check out that site for all things Brandi, including a pretty damn active forum with lots of great Brandi fans.

Brandi’s setlist:

Oh Dear
Looking Out
What Can I Say
Late Morning Lullaby
My Song
I Will (Acoustic)
Closer To You (Acoustic)
Dreams
Before It Breaks
Caroline (w/ Vienna Teng)
Turpentine
The Story

Sound Of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel Cover)
Jackson/Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash Cover)
Pride And Joy

Next up, Boston Folk Festival on Sunday!