Regina Spektor
Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA
04.03.17
Boundary-pushing indie darling Regina Spektor required no opener for her stunning performance at Seattle’s historic Paramount Theatre. Out supporting her most recent album, Remember Us To Life, Spektor took the stage in shredded black denim and shiny red shoes, her quirky personality endearing her to the crowd.
She announced that the show would be broadcast live—in partnership with Melodic Caring Project—to kids in hospitals around the world, and she gave them big shout outs, followed by willing roars from the crowd.
The stage was set with an elegant grand piano, Spektor’s three-person band semi-circled behind her. Each song was accompanied by gorgeously choreographed lighting, which colored and swept over the stage. Opening with the uptempo “On The Radio,” Spektor immediately showed off her street-smart intelligence and unique styling. From there, it was nearly two hours of brilliance.
New tracks, like the wistful, dreamy “Grand Hotel,” or the ominously pulsing “Older and Taller,” felt at home amongst old favorites like “Après Moi” and the kitschy “Sailor Song.” She kept the banter limited to dedicating tracks to the kids, but the love the crowd felt was obvious via their constant shouts of “we love you” in her direction.
Strings and thundering bass echoed through the fog of “Tornadoland” and the tinkling “Bleeding Heart” found her forgetting a lyric. But a quick giggle and apology didn’t cause her to miss a beat. She occasionally got up from the piano, grabbed a loose mic, and delivered a stomping, snarling track like “The Trapper and The Furrier,” or the humorous “Silly Eye-color Generalizations.”
Her one soliloquy came mid-set as she nervously spoke from the bench, “I came to America as a refugee and I’m an immigrant,” she said to thundering applause, “and I think that everything should be free and open. We should have open doors and open windows and open hearts and open minds. There should be no bans, and no walls, and more love. And we should have better people representing us in office.” This was appropriately followed by “Ballad of a Politician.”
Sure, there was the familiar “You’ve Got Time,” from Orange Is The New Black, but the crowd seemed to know every lyric regardless. She thoroughly thanked them for hanging out with her, and the kids, before closing the set with “Us,” which had the crowd singing along louder than the had all night.
A standing ovation was then followed by a ravishing four-song encore. This finale of fan favorites included the elegantly feel-good “Fidelity,” the syncopated “Hotel Song,” which showed off her cool vocal trickery, and the final, emotionally wrenching “Samson,” a track everyone let out a sigh of relief to hear.
Review by Stephanie Dore
Photos by Phillip Johnson
Regina Spektor
