An arena-sized pop show isn\u2019t the place to go if you\u2019re hoping to be surprised.<\/p>\n
Big productions tend to be risk averse. The music needs to work in unison with what\u2019s on the giant video screens, so night-to-night variation is discouraged. If a tour\u2019s been on the road, googling the set list eliminates mystery and lets you know what\u2019s coming next. <\/p>\n
But part of what made Brandi Carlile\u2019s show on Tuesday at the Xfinity Mobile Arena such a kick is that almost none of that was in play.<\/p>\n
Not only was it opening night on Carlile\u2019s \u201cHuman Tour\u201d \u2014 named after a song on her new album, Returning To Myself \u2014 it was also the start of her first-ever arena tour. <\/p>\n
That kept Carlile\u2019s intensely loyal audience in suspense on what was a career milestone night for the Seattle songwriter who had chalked up another milestone, just two days ago.<\/p>\n
On Sunday in Santa Clara, Calif., the Seahawks fan had sung a lovely, understated \u201cAmerica the Beautiful\u201d <\/a>at Super Bowl<\/a> LX, opening for her hometown team and Bad Bunny. She was accompanied by SistaStrings, the cello-violin duo of Monique and Chauntee Ross who were also with her in South Philly Tuesday night. <\/p>\n So you couldn\u2019t blame Carlile for being giddy as she reveled in her dream-come-true after 20 years on the road with twin brothers Phil and Tim Hanseroth, who were on either side of her as always on Tuesday. They play guitar and bass at the core of a band that\u2019s now swelled to eight members. <\/p>\n Carlile took the stage after the crowd got into the groove as Madonna\u2019s \u201cLike a Prayer\u201d played on the sound system, following a solid well-sung set by indie-folk band and fellow Seattle music scene standouts, the Head and the Heart. <\/p>\n She opened her two-hour-plus, 22-song show on acoustic guitar, silhouetted in an orange-and-yellow spotlight as she stood behind a curtain singing Returning to Myself\u2019s title cut.<\/p>\n The volume turned up gradually on the carpe diem \u201cHuman,\u201d and full-on rocker \u201cMainstream Kid,\u201d from her 2015 The Firewatcher\u2019s Daughter, which wrestled with the implications of an outsider aiming for mass market success. <\/p>\n She answered those soul-searching questions with \u201cSwing for the Fences,\u201d a vow to grab the brass ring from Who Believes in Angels?, her 2025 album with Elton John. <\/p>\n Then she took a minute to take it all in \u2014 and to also shout-out the tiny Old City<\/a> venue where she played her first Philly gig in 2005. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible feeling,\u201d Carlile told the crowd, which skewed about a decade older than her, in the packed 21,000-seat arena.<\/p>\n \u201cIt reminds me of what it was like to see Celine Dion when I was a kid. You can\u2019t really fathom it when you\u2019ve been in a van all these years, and you first came to Philadelphia and played the Tin Angel, no one could have made me believe that we\u2019re standing where we\u2019re standing right now. It\u2019s just wild.\u201d <\/p>\n Carlile is an expert community builder. Every January she hosts a \u201cGirls Just Wanna\u201d weekend<\/a>, a woman-centric festival in Riviera Maya, Mexico. This May, she\u2019s presenting “Echoes Through the Canyon at the Gorge<\/a>” in Washington state, which will reunite The Highwomen, her country supergroup with Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires. <\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s show was a master class on breaking down the wall between performer and audience. <\/p>\n \u201cHow did you guys like starting by listening to \u2018Like a Prayer,\u2019\u201d she asked, taking the crowd with her behind the curtain. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out what songs do we play while people walk in? What are we gonna do with the set list? <\/p>\n \u201cEverything tonight is an experiment for us. And I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a crowd that\u2019s better to do this for because everybody knows Philadelphia is gonna be honest. You\u2019re not going to suffer in silence. And I\u2019ve just been coming here for so long that it really does feel like the perfect place to start something this terrifying.\u201d <\/p>\n That may make the \u201cHuman Tour\u201d opening concert sound like a dress rehearsal, but the band, which also included pianist Dave McKay, drummer Terence Clark, and multi-instrumentalist Solomon Dorsey, were in mid-tour form.<\/p>\n At one point, she dismissed the band other than the Hanseroths and took requests. That resulted in charmingly casual versions of \u201cWhat Can I Say\u201d from 2005\u2019s Brandi Carlile and \u201cJosephine\u201d from 2007\u2019s The Story.<\/p>\n