Her latest tour, simply titled An Evening with Regina Spektor, was exactly what you would hope to see from her live.

Regina Spektor @ Andrew J Brady Music Center, Cincinnsti | Photo by Harry Acosta

Spektor returned to the stage in 2022 after the pandemic, though several of her touring stops that year were cut short — not from low ticket sales, but from losing her voice to Covid. She has been making up for those lost shows with an extended run this year, and tonight's stop was the Andrew J. Brady Music Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was a clear, beautiful summer evening. Outside, the new venue overlooked the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge beneath a nearly full moon. The center only opened in July of 2021, joining the Andrew J. Brady Music Center and Columbus' KEMBA Live as venues built with both an indoor and outdoor stage to accommodate weather and ticket demand. Tonight was an indoor event, and the room was ready for it.

Spektor is known — much like her former bandmate Kishi Bashi — for being a classically trained musician and a perfectionist about her craft. Both artists share a commitment to recreating their recorded work in a live setting with the same precision and intention it was made with. That standard was apparent before the first note. There were no openers, no pre-show announcements from management or a local radio sponsor. The audience was guided to assigned seats. The show started about 25 minutes behind schedule.

When the music began, the room locked in. Refreshments stopped being sold. All doors were closed between songs and opened only during applause. The audience was asked not to photograph or record. From the back of the room near the soundboard, you could hear camera shutters from the media pit fire briefly as she walked on stage — and then silence. Merchandise was still available, but no one moved. The venue honored every one of Spektor's requests as though the entire evening were being filmed.

Her first song, "Ain't No Cover," was performed a cappella, accompanied only by her own finger tapping the microphone. She moved to the piano next, where she would spend most of the night. Over the course of the evening, Spektor performed 22 songs — a mix of deeply personal selections and fan favorites — all of them sounding exactly as you would expect from someone who holds her studio recordings as the standard. A few touring bandmates joined her for select songs, but she owned the stage on her own terms for the majority of the show. The evening closed with a single encore: "Samson."

Her tour continues through the end of the month with several dates in California and New York.