Over the last six months or so, I have this one playlist I keep going back to, but I don't play every song on it, because I'm "over" most of them. The ones I'm not over - the 3 or 4 from Sia's new album, This is Acting. These songs are "Cheap Thrills", "Bird Set Free", "Unstoppable", and "Reaper". I could not/still cannot stop listening to these pieces of catchy, awesome music.
I really started to pay attention to the songs that Sia put out when "Chandelier" burst onto the scene, as did many other people. But I had heard of her before. And no, I'm not just talking about "Titanium", which is obviously another great song and the one that made Americans be like "who is this chick?" Back when I studied abroad in Australia in 2010, the ARIA's (Australian Record Industry Awards) were held in Sydney right outside of the Sydney Opera House. What was cool was that you could just chill along the harbor and hear the whole awards and performances. THIS was where I first heard the Australian artist Sia, with her fun and offbeat song of "Clap Your Hands". I thought the song was interesting and so was really excited when a couple of years later, I heard more from her.
Fast-forward to 2016, when Boston Calling announced their lineup for May, and Sia was one of the night's headliners. I'm not a fan of paying for a whole festival if I only want to see one of the people, so I had planned to "just walk around" City Hall Plaza while she was playing and not actually pay to get in. Yes, I'm cheap and I was all for this, until I became SO excited to see her that I would be so angry with myself if security or cops or whoever would tell me to leave. So, I bought two tickets for the Friday night concerts, which were only $70 each including tax - that's about standard for concerts for just one act these days anyway, so I didn't feel too bad.
My friend Kelly was here visiting and so we took her stuff back to my place and headed back out to Boston Calling, where we grabbed a beer (or two) some food from the food trucks and by the time we were done with that, it was time to see Sia!! Almost immediately, you can tell this was going to be a weird show. There's a lot of videography going on here, with pre-recorded scenes of people dancing or fighting or something like that (think Elastic Heart video), and then it would go to her on stage. Except for she's way in the back corner with her full-on wig (not surprising), and she never moves from this platform in the corner. Felt kinda weird and not what I expected, but I guess I should have considering her not liking to be the center of attention or people to know her face.
Regardless, all of her songs sounded just like on the albums and maybe even better! She has a great voice and can really hit those crazy high-notes at full blast. The "weird" part of the show besides her being in the background were the dancers (including Paul Dano, Maddie Zeigler - star of many of Sia's videos, and even Kristen Wiig) on the main stage doing that typical kind-of interpretive/emotional dancing that one can see in her videos. It was cool but also...weird. Did I mention that this was all a little weird? Haha! Here's a write-up from the Boston Herald on the concert!
Favorite songs she performed (full setlist can be found here):
Basically anything from her new album, but specifically "Unstoppable", "Alive", and "Cheap Thrills".
"Chandelier" was also awesome, obviously and she played a slower stripped-down version of "Titanium" which was cool!
Below are a few photos from the concert (we were decently far back so not many) and the audio to one of my favorite songs off her newer album, "Unstoppable" - please ignore the ugly font on that video.. In the end, would I recommend seeing Sia? Kinda? Just know what you are getting into and you'll enjoy it, I think!