brother newton and the church of ingrid

last night, instead of sitting at home on pins and needles for the election results (was it really a surprise?), my ladyfriends and i rallied for a trip to the house of blues in anaheim for an ingrid michaelson show. good times, good times.

i missed all but the last one and a half songs of the first opening act (not a fan) but managed to catch the second opening act, newton faulkner. he's fantastic. such charm, such wit. and i'm pretty sure artists hate when you make comparisons, but i'm also pretty sure he'll never read this, so i'm going to do it anyway. he reminds me a lot of john butler trio. now, i'm no guitar officionado, in fact i'm about the furthest thing from it, but to my untrained ears, the sound is similar. that said, newton faulkner live is ALWAYS worth the price of admission. check him out.

such a jolly troubadour, that newton.

and then there's ingrid. dear, darling ingrid. i like to call her sass with spectacles. okay, that was kinda lame. bottom line, the girl is a riot! i was lovin' her wit almost as much as her music. there's something about artists that are not only self-aware but can laugh at themselves that is just super endearing. she definitely knows how to connect with her audience. it helps when you're music isn't half-bad, either. in miss michaelson's case, she's the total package. her vocals are strong - she's got that low-ish gorgeous voice that jumps up into a higher register in the blink of an eye. it's pretty amazing. and the laughs keep coming. like i said, good times.

and yes, that just so happens to be a ukelele. clearly, ingrid michaelson is a woman of many talents.