New York City is always a big deal and So Cal gal Colbie Caillet at the Best Buy Theater mid-tour knows how much so as well. Her record label rep is in the audience. Her manager too. And on stage? Her writing partner Jason Reeves, who has flown from the West Coast for this night.
They are standing side by side, Jason with an acoustic guitar strapped on. And they are discussing their collaboration. Some four years prior, Jason had moved from Idaho to L.A. and, a friend of the family, he had moved in to Colbie’s parents digs. The two began writing songs together. Again and again. “We were in a place called Paradise Cove in Malibu, and it really was just paradise, so beautiful. So we said, should we stay here or should we go home and write a song about it. This is the song we wrote.” And they launched into “Droplets”.
I mention this because it explains very clearly what Colbie Caillat, MOR AOR pure pop, sometimes power pop, a touch of folk is. She is a singer songwriter who deals with life by writing songs about it. During her excellent 78 minute set on Monday, Colbie explained what she wrote and why she wrote, before each song, and just write, just another, she never loses momentum. Because that’s what she does.
In pink hot pants, a white tank tops and knee high boots, she looks unreal (better than on TV) Colbie starts the concert alone strumming her acoustic guitar, but by the second song, a revelatory “Realize” off her first album, two acoustic guitars had joined her, and a third band member on electric guitar -he plays a sleek, well mannered solo as well.
But it isn’t till the third song that Colbie’s intentions becomes clear, this is a step into her vision of life through the songs she wrote. “Shadow”, with her guitarist Justin Young, for her best friend who was in a relationship with a bad guy. They broke up. Justin takes credit for the break up.The song, which is pretty good, is how Colbie choose to deal with the situation. You and I might intervene. Colbie will write a song.
And as she tells her stories, Colbie emerges from the glam 20 something playing guitar on the beach to, in her own way, a Taylor Swiftian songwriter as diarist. Colbie’s first big hit was “Bubbly”, played the last song of the night, do you remember it? The fans do as they sing the chorus. And the verse, this verse, written when she was 20 is daydreamy and sweet: “the rain is falling on my window pane, but we are hiding in a safer place, under covers staying safe and warm, you give me feelings that I adore.” There’s a reason for that. Colbie wrote it when she was 20 years old in an attempt to imagine what true love would be like. Yup, it sounds daydreamy because it is daydreamy. And it is as if Colbie is letting you in on a secret.
Even more so later, when she admits to not being able to speak her heart easily, and wrote “I Never Told You” in response to her emotional introversion.
It makes for an interesting piece of self-realization, a stripping away and extending of the popstar veneer. And if you are thinking Taylor Swift again, you are right. Colbie co-wrote “Breathe” with Taylor and Colbie is to MOR pop what Taylor is to country pop. Except Tayor is better.
Don’t get me wrong, Caillat is a very good songwriter and a natural, very pretty and very friendly performer, but she only occasionally writes great songs: “Bubbly”, “Brighter Than The Sun” , “I Do” are the exceptions that prove the rule. And the rule is, the smooth surface of her songs glisten, less so live where her band muddies them up a little, but they don’t dig quite deep enough. It is as if the woman is… I wouldn’t say shallow, but unruffled by the world. The songs are calm and beautiful the way the Carpenters are from time to time.
This becomes clearer, not on the Jason Mraz co-song “Lucky” (and, yes, she is a female Mraz as well) but on a very powerful cover of the Scripts “Breakeven”. The original never made the slightest impression on me till her I heard Caillet nail it down: it is as if she dug deep into something she keeps a little hidden in her own songs and soars out of her vocal range on the bridge. It is easily her best vocal performance.
If there is pain in Colbie’s songs, and certainly in her stage presentation, she keeps it hidden. It is a sleight of hand, the more she reveals, the less accessible she is: the dichotomy between her stories of herself and her friends as opposed to something deeper.
Maybe she has never been hurt.
And of course, she plays my fave, “I Do” and, yes, it was written for her boyfriend and her first true love.
As good a reason as any to celebrate with this wonderful songwriter.