Sara Bareilles rocks the Hollywood Bowl with her stunning orchestrations

Hollywood: What counts as Sara Bareilles' work now isn't just releasing albums and touring on a regular basis. Both her last studio album (2019's "Amidst the Chaos") and tour are now five years apart. While that might seem like a bit of a slow start for someone who started out as early in her career as she did, Bareilles has managed to look like one of the busiest women in pop, both in and out of pop. Her recording career reached the two-decade mark this year, with the first half of those years being almost all standard album releases; over the past 10 years she's also worked as a composer ("Waitress") and star ("Into the"). Woods") on Broadway. , and yes, "Waitress"), and has successfully transitioned to TV as a producer ("Little Voice") and star ("Girls5eva," now in its third season). If you're a fan of hers, you might be a little jealous of how these projects take time away from her work as a pure singer-songwriter... and then you might be surprised at the quality of her other work. Also careful about it and says just that: no notes.

All of this is meant to demonstrate that any concert by Sara Bareilles in the 2020s is a unicorn, let alone one in which she performs in symphonic format for the first time. So it's no surprise that some fans came from across the country or even overseas for her Hollywood Bowl weekend event on Saturday, which might have seemed like a novelty even without the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Wilkins, as the sole accompaniment to the nearly ten-hour spectacle. However, the Bowl's season ticket holders have There was also reason to think it was special:

In a summer that has already seen so many great performances by pop artists using full orchestration (including Beck and Lofty), it's hard to think of a better use of the time, place and occasion for another one — this summer, or maybe ever — preferably a Bareilles-cause one.

Her show on Saturday showcased many facets of her current personality, perhaps none more exciting than the portions of the set devoted to Bareilles as a late-developing Broadway kid. Perhaps it was inevitable that she would want to end her performance with the song about which, she said, "It really symbolizes a change in my life, and everything changed after this song came out," "She Used to Be Mine," from the musical "Waitress." — though it's less certain that she would choose to do it as a full duo with rising young star Madison Cunningham, who sits in on this and a few other numbers.

She also referenced her Tony-nominated stint as a pure Broadway actress in Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” in 2022 with “Moments in the Woods,” an impossibly peppy, grimly comic workout that also allows her to dream a sensual dream as a philosophy that new experiences “are as or more meaningful than past experiences.” While Bareilles may never be as naïve as the baker’s wife, there’s a metaphor there for the singer-actress, who considers the concept of “or” when she chooses to take so many turns in her career over the past 10 years.

The third example of what she brought to Broadway at the Bowl was Bareilles’ work to premiere new songs from a stage musical she created as a follow-up to “Waitress.” He reveals that he's working on a theatrical adaptation of Meg Wolitzer's bestselling novel "The Interesting Ones" with book writer Sarah Ruhl and has begun writing a song called "Enough," which will someday be performed by a male character in the group. "I wrote this song before I even finished the book, because I was so passionate," he says, "and it's about a woman who's never satisfied and a man who loves her, and his demand that she look around and eventually admit that you have too much." The narrative performance helps, but even without any dramatic context, the song can register as a powerful kind of 11:00 number, prompting someone — or yourself — to realize that "you're a critic of what's in the eye right next to it."

There's another role better than any he's played on Broadway: that of a fierce feminist entertainer. That's the driving force behind the night's second new song, "Hands Off My Body," which Orchestra Bowl unleashes with a heavy layer of drama — the mystery of which lies not just in the strings, but also in the ideas she's used to address women's rights. She doesn't mention the fact that it's an election year, but given her progressive leanings, it's probably unnecessary, saying, "There's a lot going on for women right now and I really feel cared about, and... you all should too." Bareilles has written some scathing material about feminism before — most notably, "Armor," one of her best songs, which appeared earlier in the Bowl set, but this new song is arguably more intense, with lines like: