Sara Bareilles: Between the Lines - Live at the Fillmore (2008)

Great! (with reservations)

Sara Bareilles was one of those artists I caught just a brief glimpse of from a commercial and said ?I need more of that?. I was immediately impressed with her consistent style and talent. The fact that she allegedly has no formal piano or voice training (outside of high school choir and a college acapella group) makes her all the more remarkable. Since her song ?Love Song? has gone double platinum, I?m clearly not the only one she has impressed. I?m often disappointed that some artists tend to be less than stellar performers live and without the aid of studio production. This is not the case with Ms. Bareilles - she holds up extremely well outside the studio. Her live or ?unplugged? performances are as good, and in some cases better, than her studio produced works. I have 3 different versions of ?Love on the Rocks? and enjoy all equally. It?s safe to say I?m a big fan, and look forward to seeing her career as a singer/songwriter develop.
The DVD of her Live at the Fillmore concert left me a bit disappointed. While the content was her usual high quality performance, the actual construction of the footage seemed odd. At some points even annoying. This DVD is not strictly concert footage. It is billed up front as a ?film?, and consists of footage from not only the physical concert itself, but also from what appears to be a cozy session aboard a houseboat, and other interviews and spoken dialogue. This in itself isn?t what troubled me. The way it was all pieced together is. Several songs early in the concert begin with the live concert footage, and then switch to the same song as performed on the houseboat and back again. Thankfully, the editing is phenomenal, and since Ms. Bareilles is so consistent vocally, this little trick gets pulled off flawlessly. It would have been an interesting novelty the one time. But it wasn?t just once. The one song that put me over the top as a fan (Many the Miles) was not only cut up with this neat little editing trick, but also had a spoken dialogue portion cut in as well, completely ruining the flow and rhythm of the song. No worries, I thought, since I saw the song listed in the bonus material both from the concert footage as well as the houseboat gig footage. The bonus concert footage of Many the Miles however, included an unusually long introduction of the band members right in the middle, and during the houseboat footage, she uncharacteristically forgets the words, so this song never gets performed untouched in its entirety. Gratefully though, her two finale songs, Dock of the Bay and Gravity went untouched and are fantastic.
One other minor annoyance was her mild use of profanity (which at one point she apologizes for). I chalked it up to her admitted nerves about playing the Fillmore, but it did seem out of place given the anticipated coverage of a DVD. I often use concert DVD?s as background when entertaining, but in this case, it should be reserved for ?PG-13? rated parties.
When viewed as a whole, I enjoyed the live performance, as well as all the extra material. I only wish it were packaged a little differently. I do recommend the DVD highly, with reservations.