Rachael Sage, a New York City-based alternative-pop songstress, delighted fans at the intimate Uncommon Ground on Devon June 18.
Opening for Sage was Diana & the Dishes; Chicago singer, songwriter, pianist, and musical director Diana Lawrence fronts the eclectic and infectious musical group. Diana & the Dishes released its debut album Take a Picture in August 2010 and the band has played various Chicago hotspots like Martyrs’, Subterranean, the Abbey Pub, the Green Mill and many more over the past four years. The five-member band is entirely composed of professional Chicago musicians and according to Diana’s website, “the band presents a unique, high-energy recipe of rock, jazz, folk, cabaret, tight musicianship, sharp songwriting and contagious fun.”
Diana & the Dishes charmed attendees with powerful lead vocals and the band performed several originals from their EP including “Train to Chicago” and “Mess Around (I Don’t Wanna).”
Rachael Sage quickly took the stage after Diana & the Dishes’ performance, as if she was eager to start and share her melodies. Wearing a floor-length, black dress with a sequined, black zip-up, Sage radiated folky elegance onto the small crowd of about 40 people. Most of her hair is dyed blue, her dangly azure earrings swaying back and forth constantly during the performance.
Accompanying Sage onstage was violinist Kelly Halloran, intensifying the live performance by audiologically highlighting the drawn-out, beautiful sounds from the length of sadness to the shortness of expectations. Halloran started playing violin at 4 through the Suzuki method, and has toured with artists like Elizabeth McGovern from Downtown Abbey, the UK’s Joe Longthorne and Judy Collins.
Sage is not the type of singer-songwriter who sinks into a creative and standoffish reverie when performing live. Instead, she is brilliantly random in her introduction and between tracks, often satirizing her Jewish mother using an elderly woman’s voice that made the crowd howl with laughter.
Blue boas wrapped around all of Sage’s musical instruments, and stickers of teeth, lips and eyes as well as bedazzled jewels sparkled off her keyboard and guitar. Her soft, breathy voice soothed everyone in the room as she crooned originals like, “Bravedancing” and “Confession.” Sage is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, often switching between both instruments before performing her next song.
My favorite track was “Invisible Light”—the song possessed a catchy beat but sank into the depths of lyrical and harmonic mysticism as Sage intoned, “I know it’s wrong but every time you touch me/I hear the song of silent meaning in your hands.” Pulsating quiet blanketed the cozy setting as Sage crooned the chorus one more time and finished “Invisible Light” with unassuming finality.
About halfway through the show, Sage chatted with the audience about how eight of her tracks have been used on the TLC show Dance Moms, starring infamous dance instructor Abby Lee Miller. According to Sage, somehow her tracks are perfect for prepubescent girls to perform incredibly difficult dance numbers to. Sage recently visited the show’s studios in Pittsburgh and one of the young dancers asked her if the song “Abby Would You Wait” (off the singer’s 10th album, Haunted by You) was about Miller. Sage, caught by surprise, told the girl, “Of course!” but the song is actually about a lesbian fling Sage had in Texas about five years ago, she said. The crowd couldn’t stop laughing.
Sage ended the show with the song “New Destination,” off her newest album that has the same title. This cheery, insightful track illustrated Sage’s renewed positivity towards the unknown final “destination” to where life’s journey is guiding the songstress. Sage pleased all attendees, and I look forward to her next performance in Chicago.