Faith without deeds is dead

-- Albertine, by Brooke Fraser

Firstly, apologies to Sam and Kami for making them wait so long for an update. ;)

So way back in the beginning of September, Sam and Mush and I went to see this little-known (in the US) singer by the name of Brooke Fraser. She’s from New Zealand, and she’s pretty popular in her home country. Over here, not so much. Yet.

I prefaced the concert with fair warning to both of my fellow concert-goers: Brooke Fraser is a religious songstress. She writes lyrics that, if you’re listening closely enough, can seem to be about such religious Hot Topics as abstinence, following in the path of the Righteous Light, etc. I bought the tickets because she could have been singing about garbage cans and I still would have listened. She has an AMAZING voice, and YouTube led me to believe that it would be just as awesome live. So as we fought the throngs of Jesus Is My Homeboy teens, I secretly hoped that Sam and Mush wouldn’t regret coming along for the wave-your-hands-in-the-air (No, not like you just don’t care. Like you’re at church on a particularly holy Sunday) ride.

After being trampled by people who thought my shoes looked like a comfy place to rest their asses before the opening act, the curtains went up to much applause … and You Are My Sunshine. Now, this song holds a special place in my heart, and it always will. But putting your whiny falsetto boy voice and an acoustic guitar behind it doesn’t really make it audience-worthy. It was cute, but the poor nameless boy-man who sang it is going to have to give me a little leeway. I didn’t pay to see him sing Itsy Bitsy Spider, I paid to hear Brooke Fraser sing about “waiting ‘til we’re ready,” dammit. So I waited patiently through his set, and clapped like the crazy NOTW adolescents when Brooke Fraser took the stage.



Holy Scheisse, that woman can sing. I have to honestly say, she sounds amazing on the record but she’s damn near flawless live. I always judge by how closely the singer sticks to the harder notes they hit on their records versus when they’re live. Take Meiko, for instance. She cut most of her longer notes in half, and was considerably lower on some of the high notes. She wasn’t bad, but she also wasn’t the same. Not so with this one. Ms. Fraser held the long notes longer, and added some nice vocal freestyling that showcased the fact that those pipes are the real deal.

After her first song or two, she had a nice conversation with the audience wherein she asked someone to let her in on the secret to opening her bottle of Arrowhead water. She couldn’t get the bloody Sport Top to flip open, so she ended up just twisting the whole damn thing off (per audience instruction). The whole thing was terribly endearing, and was marked as such when Sam turns to Mush and me and states with a little bit of awe, “she seems so nice, I wanna be her friend!” Coming from Sam, that is one solid Stamp of Approval!

The rest of the night proceeded with more adorable stories, including the ever-important story of the title track off her newest album, Albertine. Turns out she went to Rwanda in 2005 and, like anybody would be, was struck by the war and poverty and all-around anguish she saw there. Flash forward three years, and she’s made it her life’s mission to help these children and give them the opportunity to enjoy simplicities that people who haven’t had to live through that kind of home-grown horror tend to take for granted. After making everyone in the audience feel like graduates of the A is for Asshole! University (in the most non-threatening and adorable way), she gave us the chance to redeem ourselves and sponsor some children or buy merchandise to donate proceeds. People raised their hands to sponsor the kids, and the night was back off on its merry little way. A few songs and a wacky but enjoyable attempt at a sing-a-long to Kings of Leon’s Day Old Blues later, and it was go-home time.

While waiting for the valet to bring my Shirley back to me, some lovely young chanteuses decided to cap the night off with a warbly rendition of Ingrid Michaelson’s The Way I Am. Word to the wise: love the song, let’s let the professional handle it, shall we? Kthxbai.