Image Source
Sia
Commodore Ballroom
August 19th, 2011
Guests: Ximena Sarinana / Oh Land
The We Are Born Tour.
The last time Sia played the Commodore in April of 2010, she collapsed a few songs in. This time however, Sia played the full ~ 90 minute set. She walked out on stage dressed in a combination of a ruffled dress / poncho adorned and patterned with vaginas of different sizes, shapes and colours, completed with a pair of heels with, yes you guessed it a vagina pattern attached to it. It was extravagant, indeed. The set opened with a couple songs off of her newest release We Are Born, it seemed that the show would play into a pattern of a song after song cycle.... but I thought too soon, because between every few songs Sia's personality and hilarious anecdotes broke the crowd of the hypnotic trance that I'm sure most of us were in listening to Sia belt out the lyrics.
She talked about her experience of trying to explain to her friend the type of vagina she had.... (her sudden candid and un-shy demeanor was unexpected but completely welcomed) --- only stopping the story to hastily ask if there were any kids there... hopefully not. What I learned was that you could easily describe yours truly as a 'flower'. Lesson learned.
The Vancouver show was the last of her North America tour stops. It was the last "show, for a long time" as Sia told us, I realized just how special this show was. The sold out show filled with excited audience members laughed along to the random antics of the one and only Sia. A devoted fan baked her Kale cookies, and if you follow Sia on twitter you would understand her recent obsession to Kale chips and how much this sentiment means.
Between songs she encouraged us to 'talk' to her, ask her questions, throw things at her ---- you know, the usual things any musician would ask an audience to partake in. She is quickly become one of my favourite personalities, in addition to being a brilliantly talented musician.
Her powerhouse vocals were evident in her ballads and even more so in her more sincere songs.
Let's just say that it was all that I expected and more. On stage, Sia may not move and dance like the former Britney Spears, but her talent obvious from her musicianship --- overlook that.
Sia came back for an encore after a short period after leaving the stage to "sing the to two songs [she] hates to play". I was surprised to hear this, but it was completely understandable. "Clap Your Hands" followed by "Breathe Me" received the warmest and most excitable responses. Everyone danced and sang along to "Clap Your Hands", and swayed and sang along to "Breathe Me." This was the first song I had heard from Sia. This song holds a lot of sentiment, it was the song that helped me transition to High School, it was the song that can easily move me to tears. In whatever way that it helped shape my taste in music, I am sure glad that it was a part of my teenage years. Hearing it live was to me, a moment that I want to remember, for a while at least.
Beautiful.
Oh Land opened the show, I caught the middle of her set onwards and thought she was an eclectic mix of pop and dance. Her set warmed everyone up for Sia to take stage... I was too excited to really invest myself to pay much detailed attention to the band. Sorry Oh Land.
The Georgia Straight has a more detailed and semi(not-so-much) decent review, despite the writer claiming Sia to be 'nuts' it's bearable to read, he obviously doesn't follow her on twitter.
(I love this stop motion video for "Breathe Me" --)
No comments:
Post a Comment