Julien Baker played Beacon Theatre with Thao & Mini Trees (pics, video, setlist)
Julien Baker embarked on the fall leg of her North American tour, supporting her 2021 album Little Oblivions (order on vinyl), earlier this month, and on Tuesday night (9/14) the tour hit NYC for her biggest headlining show here yet, at Beacon Theatre. The night began with a set from Mini Trees, the project of Lexi Vega, who played songs from her debut LP, Always in Motion, that’s due out on Friday via Run for Cover. She was in awe to be performing at a seated theater, and recalled seeing the Beacon Theater as the setting of a comedy standup special.
Up next was Thao, who energized the crowd with her set. She recently announced a deluxe edition of her 2020 album Temple, and her set included “Marrow” from that album, which she wrote before getting married during the pandemic.
When Julien Baker hit the stage, the venue really came alive for her. With Little Oblivions having come out back in February, the audience had plenty of time to memorize the lyrics, and she encouraged people to sing along. When someone shouted, “can we stand up?,” she told people to do so, but only if they felt comfortable.
Julien played almost all of Little Oblivions, except for “Crying Wolf,” and also included tracks from her previous albums, including a solo portion with the beautiful “Sprained Ankle” on guitar followed by “Televangelist” on keyboard.
Julien chatted quite a bit during her performance, saying how nice it was to play for actual people and thanked us for getting vaccinated and wearing masks so that this could all happen. She remarked how different her tour was this time, compared to when she headlined Town Hall in 2017, when she played a mostly solo, acoustic set. This time she brought a full band, and had dramatic lighting to help set the mood and pacing of her music. There were moments when her voice songs really soared to goosebumps-inducing heights.
See pictures by Ellen Qbertplaya from Tuesday night’s show, along with Julien’s setlist, and videos from her set, below.
Order Julien’s albums on vinyl here.
SETLIST: JULIEN BAKER @ BEACON THEATRE, 9/14/2021
Hardline
Bloodshot
Shadowboxing
Favor
Relative Fiction
Highlight Reel
Sprained Ankle (Solo)
Something (Solo)
Televangelist (Solo)
Song in E (Solo)
Faith Healer
Heatwave
Ringside
Tokyo
Repeat
Sour Breath
Ziptie
Encore:
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