Concert Review: Ingrid Michaelson

By: Angela Hessenius

Ingrid Michaelson

Humphrey’s Concerts By the Bay

9 May 2014

Ingrid Michaelson’s performance was spectacular. I was blown away by the perfection of her voice. The concert was a part of her tour for her new album, Lights Out, and she played many of her new songs, like “Home,” “Time Machine,” and “Girls Chase Boys.” She included plenty of old favorites too, including “Be OK” and a very funny ‘polka version’ of “You and I”.

She is funny, lighthearted and quirky, and when she’s onstage, it feels like you’re just hanging out with a (extremely talented) friend. This also showed through in her chemistry with her fellow performers. She brought back at least one member of the two opening bands, Sugar and the Hi Lows and Storyman, during the show to perform a song with her. “You Got Me,” which she performed with Storyman, was probably my favorite song of the night because they each elevated each other’s performance and it’s such a beautiful duet. She also performed “The Chain,” one of my favorite songs she has ever written, with her backup singer Allie Moss and Amy Stroup of Sugar and the Hi Lows. The fact that they were all friends made the whole experience more fun for them and the audience.

The venue at Humphrey’s is in a beautiful area—some people even got to listen to the show from their boats. It was a sit down concert with lawn chairs in rows, and it was nice because the venue was small so we could see even though we were closer to the back. The crowd was somewhat slow to warm up, a lot of the people there were older, and because of the nature of the venue, we weren’t technically supposed to stand up, dance, or take pictures (although I did all three). A couple times I went to sing along but no one else was, which was a little awkward, but it got better as the night went on and Ingrid tried to get the audience a little more involved, especially during her absolutely beautiful performance of “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” However, during the encore, we left our seats and went right up to the stage, and with a whole group of people dancing and singing the energy surged. That was definitely my favorite part of the concert and I was sad for it to be over.

I would see Ingrid again in a heartbeat. It was awesome that she played so many songs (her set was probably over 20 songs), but I’d love to see her connect more with the audience at a different kind of venue where she could be less restrictive in what she can say, because she’s such a funny and genuine person. She’s such an amazingly talented singer and songwriter, and I would definitely recommend listening to her new album Lights Out as well as her older music if you’re not familiar with her.