Christina Perri performed Thursday at The Center for the Arts on the University at Buffalo (UB) campus in Western New York. The stage was dressed with candle lights across the background. One couldn’t help but notice some of Perri’s 72 tattoos, sparkly outfit and contagious smile. The entire band looked like they were having so much fun on stage. They were also very seamless and tight musically, using dynamics to shift the focus to Christina and back. It was definitely an evening with Christina as the venue allowed for the crowd to communicate and interact with her. One fan yelled out that it was her birthday and Perri sang happy birthday to her.
For being such an intimate venue, Christina’s story telling skills shone through between songs and describing them. In one story, she said she had a songwriting session scheduled and it was an incredible inconvenience that she was happy about because as she says her “creativity flows smoother when she’s miserable.” As a result she worked through it and created the happy song called “Be My Forever” with the well known Ed Sheeran. “A Thousand Years” was the romantic song of the night. It was featured in the movie Twilight. “Burning Gold” required the audience to snap fingers throughout the song, something that I failed to accomplish. Christina told a story about herself when she was 15 and wrote a song for the first time and the amount of relief that she felt from it. She mentioned that sometimes she felt like she should give up music and hit a brick wall but decided to forgive herself. She sang “Human” and I shed tears. It was a very inspiring moment in the performance. “I Believe” she cut the audience into 3 parts of singing layered on top of each other. During “Penguin” she requested the audience to take selfies and said that she would post the best selfie of the night on Instagram later and then did so. It was a really entertaining evening with Christina Perri.
Setlist:
Shot In The Heart
Arms
Distance
Be My Forever
The Words
A Thousand Years
Sky Full Of Stars (Coldplay Cover)
One Night
Burning Gold
Human
I Believe
Encore:
Penguin Jar Of Hearts
I Don’t Wanna Break
Photos by Gus Griesinger. We would like to thank David Wedekindt from UB for helping with the credentials to review the show.
