The lights dimmed over a fully seated house at Schermerhorn Symphony Tuesday evening, November 1st, for Colbie Caillat’s Nashville show. Purple and warm Christmas lights dawned the stage as she and her band of 5 walked on together. The crowd erupted with claps, snaps, and hoots of joy.
“Welcome Colbie!” A young woman in the back yelled out over the claps. “Hey everyone!” She said into the microphone and went on to personally introduce the audience to her friends in the band. To her right was her best friend and lead acoustic guitar, Jason Reeves. The pair had been writing songs together since she was 19. Nelly Joy, long time friend and the only other girl in the band, was on the second lead guitar. Dave Marotta of Los Angeles, was on bass. She said she had wanted to work with Dave for years but he was always working with her friends. On her right was her fiance, Hawaiian multi-musician Justin Young.. The pair had been friends for over 5 years. And lastly, Mike Baker on percussion. Baker and Colbie had worked together since the beginning as well.
After all of the introductions she played her entire album, “The Malibu Sessions”, start to finish. In between songs she told stories and kept the show very relaxed, for instance, while transitioning from “Goldmine” and “Crusin” she discussed the creation of the album, noting it was written years ago, before her penultimate album “Gypsy Heart”. Reeves expressed how fun it was to live and record in their Malibu rental house on the beach for over two month.
In the opening for “Tomorrow Never Comes”, Colbie spoke about her childhood. She said when she was growing up her parents listened to classic rock greats like Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, and Paul Simon. Paul Simon went on to create one of Colbie’s favorite albums, “Graceland”, in South Africa. The group vocal sound on that album was something she wanted to create on “Tomorrow Never Comes”.
She announced that she and her fiancé had recently moved to Nashville and were super excited about it. The audience was thrilled and started yelling out restaurants like Flipside where they should go eat.
Colbies fiancé, Justin, told a story about how “The Hunger Games” producers reached out to them to write a song for the movie. Of course they said they would do it and they did however the song was never used. Instead they kept the melody of the song and actually changed the lyrics to be about their relationship and how it blossomed after being friends on the tour that lasted so long. That song was called “Runnin”, and they played it shortly after.
Before the last song of the show, Colbie asked if anyone had any questions for her. An audience member asked when Colbie’s wedding date was. She told him they were thinking of doing a spontaneous elopement with a few friends and family. Shortly after, she went brought her two dogs on stage. The fluffy white pup was wandering all over stage and eventually settled at Dave, the bassist’s, feet. The other brown pup rested in Nelly Joy’s arms as she played the guitar for “Brighter Than the Sun”.
Overall the show was beautiful, and the symphony setting was ideal for her all acoustic show. Her vocals were astounding and her friends are extremely talented musicians. They all have a wonderful dynamic that was fun to watch and even be a part of.