Her latest tour is simply titled An Evening with Regina Spector and was just what you would hope to see live.
In 2022, She started performing for the first time again after the pandemic. Many of Regina Spektor’s touring stops were cancelled last year, not due to low ticket sales, but Regina losing her voice from Covid. She has been making up for all of those lost shows with several more shows this year. Tonight, it was the Andrew J Brady Music Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
It was a clear beautiful summer night outside where the new venue overlooked the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge and a nearly full moon. This venue only opened its doors in July of 2021, joining the ranks of the MegaCorp Pavilion in Cincinnati and Columbus’ Kemba Live for having an indoor and outdoor stage to accommodate for weather and expected ticket sales. And accommodate they did for this indoor event.
Regina is known for, much like her previous bandmate Kishi Bashi, being a classically trained musician and a perfectionist at her craft. They both want to recreate the sounds in a live setting to emulate exactly as they were meant to be from the moment they released the original recording.
There were no openers, or pre-show announcements from management or a local radio station supporting the tour. Everyone was ushered to their assigned seats. The show started 25 minutes later than scheduled. Once the music began, the audience was on lock down. Refreshments were no longer to be sold. All doors in or out were to remain closed and could only be used in between songs during applause. The audience was asked to take no photos or video recordings. You could hear camera shutters actuating from the media if you were in the back, by the soundboard as she walked on stage and greeted her fans. Merch was still available, but no one left their seat. The venue made sure all of Regina’s requests were met as if the entire show was being filmed for a movie.
Her first song, “Ain’t No Cover”, was a cappella, only with the accompaniment of her tapping the mic with her finger. She moved to the piano next where she would remain the majority of the evening. Regina played 22 songs through the course of the night and they all sounded exactly as you would expect having only heard the studio recordings. It was a mix of what was seemingly the most meaningful songs for her and fan favorites. She was accompanied on stage for a few songs from touring bandmates, but took the stage solo and owned it for the evening. The evening ended with one song for the encore — “Samson”.
Her tour runs through the end of this month with several dates in California and New York.
