17 July 2019, Pacific Amphitheatre, Costa Mesa, CA

After seven years of being Brandified and constantly reminding myself that I need to post all the photos from the amazing shows I’ve been to by this amazing artist – and that is very few compared with the long-time die-hard Brandi Carlile fan people, I am finally retro-posting – in March 2026!

Call this Brandification Part 1.

I fell in love with Brandi along with many other people when she performed “The Joke” on the 2019 Grammy Awards stage and my jaw dropped to the floor as I was, literally, floored. I still am every single time I watch that clip. I had seen her at the Joni 75 concert only a couple of months earlier and the Glenn Frey tribute three years prior, but I didn’t know her in her own right. So that 2019 Grammy performance was the revelation, and I committed to seeing whatever concerts Brandi Carlile did in or near LA. I had to wait until July and drive to Costa Mesa and deal with the Orange County Fair to make that happen. I hadn’t realised it would just be the acoustic trio version of Brandi Carlile – she and the Hanseroth Twins, the three of whom are the legal entity that is Brandi Carlile – so there was no lush grandiose backing as there had been at the Grammys. However, it turned out it was a perfect way to experience a Brandi Carlile show for the first time, as it was all about the singing and the songs. It was so very sweet. And this setlist was central to the shows I saw for the next few years, before she leaned from Americana more into pop and rock and bigger stages and collaborations with Elton, Joni et al.

This will always go down as a really special night for me. Just me, not knowing other Brandi fans yet (The Bramily), sitting there and taking it all in. And taking photos, of course. It’s quite fascinating to me now looking back at these photos of Brandi just seven years ago. In some ways so instructive for the future photos I was to take – that smile, that hair, that interaction with Phil and Tim – and knowing that this was before so many things she has done since.