12 October 2026, Dolby Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
It’s always nice to be enlightened, even later in life. So it is for me with the magnificent Sara Bareilles.
Somehow I got quite far along in my life without knowing her work. I’m really not sure how that happened, but I first encountered her stunning presence on TV in 2018 as Mary in Jesus Christ Superstar; I am sure I knew about her over the years prior, but maybe I had just classified her as a Broadway performer and not realised she was a seriously popular pop artist as well. Me, the supposed wiz on music.
The song of hers most recognisable when I look at her discography is “Brave”, one of those totally anthemic songs that strong female artists are so good at doing, but apparently that wasn’t her biggest hit. That was her breakthrough single “Love Song”. Where was I when “Love Song” was a hit in mid-2007? Well, I was caring 24/7 for my mother through her gruesome terminal brain tumour demise. So there’s a case of life getting in the way, and grief diverting one from music that might have given me joy when I most needed it.
Sara Bareilles knows all about that. Her new album, the documentary about making it, and her latest tour, are all titled Good Grief.
I went to Sara Bareilles’s Hollywood Bowl concert in 2024 because something told me I needed to be there. I was too far back to take any photos, but I did so admire her silver sparkly suit and how the crowd were so enthralled. Since then I paid more attention to her, and recently I finally watched Waitress, her star-turning Broadway hit, albeit on the performance filmed for TV. “She Used To Be Mine” is such an epic show stopper, and so transcendent that it flies way beyond the Broadway stage, just like other perfect show-stopping songs such as Stephen Sondheim’s “Send In The Clowns” from A Little Night Music. You don’t have to be a lowly paid pregnant waitress in a diner to relate to the disillusionment of shattered dreams in these lines:
She’s imperfect but she tries
She is good but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won’t ask for help
She is messy but she’s kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up
And baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine
All to say, I was excited for this first of three nights Sara was performing at the Dolby Theatre (home of the Academy Awards) in Hollywood last week, and nabbing a decent 11th row seat, which seems to have been my sweet spot lately as it’s where I was for Sarah McLachlan at the Orpheum nearly a year ago and got great pics there.
Both Sarah and Sara have been focused on grief and major life change in their latest albums. Better Broken has been on constant play mode for me for more than a year and Good Grief is right up there now, too.
Sara B was born just a week after my high school graduation formal (prom)! That makes her young to me. She is so multi-faceted and hugely popular and bravely honest about all her personal struggles – friends dying way too young, infertility, mental health challenges. Her Good Grief documentary, which shows an intense five days of recording for her album, has a great moment when early one morning she is regrouping with some of her band members and collaborators, warming her hands on a mug of coffee, and she says that when you have that first morning coffee, for about ten minutes everything seems possible. And then it passes and everything is awful.
Yes, girl, I’m there with you, I said out loud in the cinema in Santa Monica.
Her fans relate deeply to her songs and her honesty. Next to me at the Dolby was a stunningly beautiful woman, whose husband had flown her over from North Carolina especially for her birthday and to see this show – he was also gorgeous – yet she had come to cry. She told me before the show started that she was going to cry. And during the haunting performance of “Ladies In A Line”, the song on Good Grief that is about the challenges of IVF and wanting to have a child, she did indeed weep. The woman on my other side reached over to comfort her. I rubbed her back. It was all on.
The cruel truth
Of starting late
Life was asking
Other questions ‘til now
Sara played most of the Good Grief album, then broke the mood with a cover of the Whitney Houston hit “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (not sure why), and then her own hits: “Love Song”, “King of Anything” (everyone except me knew you were meant to clap rapidly in parts of that song) and “Brave”, then a glorious encore that began with “She Used to Be Mine” and ended with “Let the Rain” (lots of clapping in that one, too). I was amazed by then to realise we had been entertained for two and a half hours because it flew by. It was wonderful.
Sara is adorable in her hat but I hoped she would remove it and I was ready to snap one pic when she momentarily did. Her facial expressions are true Broadway as she emotes through every song with wide eyes or sad eyes or delight or mournful yearning or all of it at once. She’s eminently watchable. The stage set design was a little more elaborate than maybe it needed to be; it was interesting but all anyone wanted to keep their eyes on was this superb artist. I might have arrived late to the Sara Bareilles appreciation society but I am a fan forever now.
I will enjoy these photos for years to come. Click through for larger versions.
(A postscript note: This could be my last concert for 2026 and for the foreseeable future, although I hope I am wrong. Life is taking more dramatic turns… But there are still many photos from concerts I did not post in recent years that I plan to catch up on. Stay tuned.)
