Indigo Girls & Brandi Carlile 6/25/07 @ Ravinia (Chicago, IL)
After being obsessed with Brandi Carlile [and her music] for over 3 years, I finally got to see her play for the first time! She was opening for the IG, who I had only heard a little bit of. By the end of the night, I fell in love with them. Brandi stole my heart. Since that day, she has been my favorite artist. And forever will be. Setlist...
Sixty Years On (Cover)
What Can I Say
Closer to You
Downpour
Turpentine
The Story
Folsom Prison Blues (Cover)
Cannonball (with the Indigo Girls)
Hallelujah (No surprise there)
I'm pasting this review from my MySpace blog...
My friend's mom drove us to Highland Park, about 6 hours from us. We arrived at Ravinia around 4:45. When we walked in the gates, I swore I heard Brandi's voice, and that the song was "Burn." We wandered around, and then went to take a look at the stage. Brandi was doing her soundcheck! We watched her (from a great distance) sing "Closer to You," "I've Just Seen a Face," "Follow," "Burn," and "Turpentine." Pretty cool.
We bought a bunch of merch...I got two IG shirts, two BCB shirts, and a Ravinia poster & shirt. We then sat down on a bench for the next two hours, until they finally let us into the pavillion. In the Ravinia program they spelt her name Brandy Carlile 2/4 times. =/
Once we got to the pavillion, we found that mine & my friend's seats were in the 3rd row, to the right. Pretty amazing seats. My friend's mom had a seat in the front row, just off center. She had no idea how she got that. There were two other seats in her row, belonging to HUGE IG fans. My friend's mom talked to them, saying how we drove about 400 miles to see Brandi, and the women said we could have their two seats in the front during Brandi's set, as long as they could have them back for the IG. Pretty sweet deal. That's when I called Fran (deadinmi) and told her where we were. She was with Heidi on the lawn.
Finally, the show started promptly at 8. It was just amazing, I couldn't have pictured it any better. After the first song, my friend and I stood up and yelled, "BRANDI!" She put down her water, ran around to the other side of Phil, and gave us a wave.
Another great moment was during What Can I Say. We were right infront of Phil & Josh. All of a sudden we see Josh looking at us, and he makes a gesture toward Phil, who's doing the little head bop. Josh starts obnoxiously imitating Phil, so we started laughing. Phil saw us laughing, pointed at us and laughed. Josh, seeing this, laughed at the whole scene.
During Turpentine Brandi split the crowd up for harmonies again. When she walked over to Phil, he said something like "It's really high, LADIES." and looked at us. So as Phil sings his part, Brandi cracks up, as always. The harmonies always sound so cool (=
Brandi talked up the Indigo Girls, and about how silly her little van looked following their GIANT bus around. She also told us about how she's now an aunt, and the worst part was it was her LITTLE brother who had a kid. She then talks about how it's good it was a day off, or she would have missed it. Thus leading to the "Downpour" story.
After Hallelujah we found Fran and my friend's mom in line to meet Brandi. After about 15(ish?) minutes she came. She signed my picture, and I told her I loved the song "Fall" to which she replied "Wow, cool. That was way back in the day. Glad you like it though." She signed my friend's iPod, and she said she loved "24/7." Brandi said "You do?!?" To which my friend replied "...yeah." So Brandi said "Wow you have old stuff. How the hell do people get this stuff. So old." We thanked her, and headed back to our seats, as the IG were starting.
I got a few good pictures, and quite a few videos. During the IG encore, everyone flocked to the stage, so I literally sat my camera down to film the last 3 songs. Unfortunately, it ran out at the end of Galileo, as everyone was hugging.
My video of Hallelujah, which was AMAZING, got taken off youtube for copyright infringement, sadly. Here's "The Story"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce0HaXRr6V0Brandi & the IG "Galileo"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NL02HWo5JUBrandi & the IG "Tried to Be True"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nqZl1Ufl5wBrandi & the IG "Rock & Roll Heaven's Gate"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkoZTk0zVC8Yeah I almost passed out during this moment...
