Sarah actually came out during Aoife's opening set, to sing backup/harmony vocals. I thought that was pretty cool of her. Then Aoife did the same during Sarah's set. Aoife also sings on at least one track on Sarah's new album.
Anyway, then Sarah came out and sang, and played guitar, banjo, and mandolins. She really seems to be developing her mandolin playing these days, as she does a lot of it on her new album. She even played a Bela Fleck tune that was pretty impressive.
I'm a huge fan of Sarah, both her singing/playing and her composition/songwriting. She's an amazing musician. What struck me right away last night was that she sounded live just like she sounds on her albums. This says two things to me: that the sound in this venue is really top-notch, and that Sarah's not relying on engineering tricks to make her voice sound the way it does.
She did a little over an hour long set with a couple encores - one of which was a VERY respectable solo rendition of Paul Simon's Kathy's Song. Love that tune. She did a mix of stuff from all three of her albums, though she emphasized her recent release, naturally. It was a trio, Sarah along with a cello (Nate Smith - REALLY talented, next to Sarah I think he was the stand-out musician of the night for me) and a violin (also quite good, not quite the performance presence of the other two but solid playing).
If you've heard Sarah's latest album, there's a track on there, actually a Bob Dylan song, with just Nate on cello (played pizzicato) and Sarah singing. It's one of my favorite tracks on the album, and their performance of it live was fantastic as well. Again, really serious musicians here, not just "pop stars."
That's my daughter's head on the left, this was taken from our seat. We were RIGHT THERE, it was so cool.
