After over ten years away, singer-songwriter Regina Spektor is returning to Texas for a series of specials shows on her Midsummer Daydream Tour, including a night at Bayou Music Center on Saturday, August 9<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even understand how that happened,\u201d the ethereal-troubadour admits. \u201cI don\u2019t understand time. I was trying to sort out cities I haven\u2019t been to in a while and I basically, I don\u2019t tour that much. So somehow it magically\u2026 and also trying to get something where you can actually go around and get there on a bus. It\u2019s a whole game to try to make things fit, it\u2019s a puzzle! Well at this time they can, but you can\u2019t. So it all just worked out, and I\u2019m glad that it did.\u201d
The indie-pop icon is happy to pay tribute to another poetic bard with her new tour\u2019s name. \u201cI am a Shakespearian fan!\u201d she says emphatically with reference to fairy-fueled Elizabethan comedy A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream. \u201cI was also thinking about how, I think one of the earliest shows that we planned for this was at Seattle\u2019s Zoo and I was just picturing being surrounded by trees and I\u2019ve just played those like Central Park outdoor stage shows where you just feel like you are in a secret garden. That was the inspiration for that kind of running off into the woods with music people feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
For this show, more than ever before, Spektor is turning part of tour-prep process over to her listeners. \u201cI, a lot of the time, will like to reach out to people coming to the show online and I ask them for requests,\u201d she says. \u201cI have so many different records that span so much time \u2014 and then I try to get help with this because I\u2019m not organized enough. But my team is amazing and they help me make like lists and then I sort of start thinking of songs to practice. Then on top of that there are songs I might want to do that are sort of my list. Then together with all these lists, I make my set list. And then, I never follow my set list! Just being inspired in the moment to play what feels right.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a clearly a freedom with playing a best-of type of show, Spektor concludes. \u201cThese types of tours are different. You know, when I make a new record and I tour, a lot of the time, I\u2019m excited to be hearing the majority of that record. So, like, the real estate of a show, a lot of it goes to that new material, which makes a lot of sense since you are so excited to share the newest things you have written. A lot of the time these type of show-shows, where they are not about the new record, you really just open up your entire catalogue. Let me just practice a bunch of songs from every record and do what feels right on the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vast treasure troves of tunes from the Spektor-song book have been front for the 45-year-old as of late. With the recent release on colorful newly pressed vinyl of her five essential albums, Spektor is reacquainting herself with some forgotten past-masters.
\u201cIt\u2019s actually a really amazing experiment,\u201d she agrees, \u201cLast December I did these residencies with a really old self released record of mine called Songs. They were songs, and I mean, this is a 22-year-old record of songs that were even older than that! And it was so interesting to play them because you kind of realize that songs are outside of time. And you do get to meet them in this new way. One of the fun things is all those songs that I re-learned and revisited, because I really hadn\u2019t played pretty much most of them for that amount of time. So now they\u2019re kinda part of the gang, so they get to be picked too. I\u2019ll play a bunch of those even though I\u2019m not gonna play the whole record in full. It\u2019s really fun to have rediscovered them.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those superfans looking to pick up each of the new limited edition re-releases on LP, each album gets its own unique color scheme: \u2018Yellow Flame\u2019 for Begin to Hope (2006), \u2018Velum Clear\u2019 for Far (2009),\u00a0an eye catching blue \u2018Curacao\u2019 for Live in London\u00a0(2010),\u00a0\u2018Translucent Red\u2019 for What We Saw From The Cheap Seats\u00a0(2012) and a hazy \u2018Black Cloud\u2019 for Remember Us Back to Life\u00a0(2016)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is so incredible to see these colors in person,\u201d she beams. \u201cI was really impressed because you get to see these mock ups, but then they really arrive and they actually make you happy to look at them.\u201d
While many might have first encountered Spektor\u2019s haunting melodies during the CD-era, the Russian-born indie darling enjoyed the challenge of porting her wares and joining the vinyl revolution.
\u201cI\u2019m always just strapped in for the ride!\u201d she says about bringing her spirit to the format with revived interest. \u201cI have no idea from one minute to the next. It is interesting to see how certain things influence what records even are. On vinyl, for example, a lot of the time if I\u2019m pressing things that were just on CD, sometimes I have to turn it into three records instead of two because the CD holds more music. On vinyl, you start to lose fidelity at a certain moment because you can\u2019t put too much on one side, or else it is not going to have the great bass or the peaks and everything get smooshed. Then on streaming it\u2019s like endless, you could put ten hundred hours of music on there if you want.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI really think for me personally that it\u2019s not even really about records. I sequence the songs and they do kind of live together, but in a lot of ways for me personally, it\u2019s really about songs. Individual songs. I really think of them as each being its own little world. So to me it doesn\u2019t really matter what you are listening on: you could listen on your headphones and stream a song, or you could listen to a vinyl record to an entire side. But its more about if that song did something for you. Does it make you travel somewhere in your imagination? Does it help you feel something you\u2019ve been trying to feel? Or remember?\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the interaction with the person. I\u2019m not a purist. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s a bootleg and you can hear coughing! Like a song is just supposed to get you whatever way. I\u2019m just happy whatever the method: CD, vinyl, cassette, bootleg, remake, somebody humming it to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regina Spektor’s performance is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Saturday, August 9 at Bayou Music Center, 520 Texas. For more information, visit\u00a0bayoumusiccenter.com. $49-206
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