Concert Review: Regina Spektor, San Antonio

(Photo Credit: Cristy Britt)

Seeing Regina Spektor perform for the first time in San Antonio, Texas in August (sort of a birthday present for me!) was not on my bingo card for this year, but what a treat it was. Playing the HEB Performance Hall at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, which was another first for me, provided an exquisitely personal atmosphere with a politely interactive crowd and the chance to block out the rest of the world in the most intimate moments. Dark lighting and a stripped-down stage, along with Regina’s confident, yet unassumingly quirky, stage presence meant that this was a perfect opportunity to really feel the music and let it carry me through all of the emotions Regina has the unique capacity to share with us.

The show opened with a beautiful acapella prayer of peace; being Friday, Regina welcomed the Sabbath with us by sharing her rendition of Shalom Aleichem. It was a touching invitation into her world and a wonderful way to remind us all just how easily her voice can carry the room all on its own. Folding Chair came next, getting everyone in the room into a sing-along with the jauntily catchy ode to easy love. She performed for most of the rest of the show at her piano, which she so masterfully plays, in both the sense of artistry and the sense of fun, but she did step away to sing a few more a capella, like the entertainingly silly Reginasaurus. She also brought her beautiful Epiphone Wildkat for That

Time, which carries some light-heartedness in its structure too, but also reminds us of the deeply dark experiences that she’s equally able to convey with effortless weight. Ultimately, whether on piano, guitar, or just with her voice, Regina Spektor is a master at tugging at our heart-strings.

The most incredible thing about seeing her perform live, to me, is the way she brings the crowd together. Throughout the show, I couldn’t help but notice that everyone around me was just as invested in her carefully crafted words, laughing, crying (sometimes simultaneously), and thoroughly giving in to the power of her voice. For nearly two-and-a-half decades, Regina’s voice has been a singularly monumental force, and unlike the one she sings about in Us, it has definitely not begun to rust. If anything, her style and tone have rounded into a softer luminescence, like the gleam of a precious stone after rolling around the tumbler for a while; and yet her voice rings through, sharp and crystalline, as it always has, when she wants it to. Regina has always given us plenty of playful and upbeat melodies, too, but some of her more recent songs carry an ethereally poetic nuance to her writing than some of the post-modern Greenwich Village-esque symbolism of some of her early work. Good thing for us, she still plays a varied scope from her catalog, from Eet and Reading Time with Pickle, to Grand Hotel and Loveology.

My favorite song of the night was mid-show when she returned to an old favorite in Ne Me Quitte Pas. Not only was it some of her most enthusiastic piano playing of the night, she also replaced “Paris” and “rain” at the end of the rendition to the lyrics “I love San Antonio in the heat” and everyone had a good laugh about the conditions outside that we all braved to be with her and she with us. She provided plenty of opportunities like this throughout the night for the crowd to interact and for us all to feel special in her company. At the end, she quickly returned for an encore of Two Birds and Samson.

This was one of the last shows on her tour, but if you get the chance to catch her benefit performance in November for Arts Westchester, or perhaps on a future tour, I can’t recommend it more highly. This was a bucket list show for me, and if it’s not on yours I think you should consider adding it. It was a magical night!