Right before COVID broke out, Joshua Radin announced a tour that was to hit my hometown of Bethlehem, PA, but as we all know COVID cancelled all tours, among other things. Since then Joshua Radin has gone on tour, but nothing close to where I lived at the time, until this tour, which is in support of his latest album One Day Home. With a full band in tow, the five year wait to see Joshua again was well worth it.

Similar to Joshua Radin, Brendan James also went through the major label machine in the beginning of his career with conflicting results. However, with perseverance the final outcome seems to be happiness. With just a piano, Brendan James sang through a set of inspiring and beautiful songs. Brendan is also in support of his latest album, Chasing Light, which came out this year in January and is an album that brought him back into making more music. The song “Peacemaker”, which is about a Native American peace maker, had a haunting melody and powerful lyrics while the title track had a uplifting message where Brendan explained his overcoming to record music again. Almost all of Brendan’s recorded music includes a band and backing tracks, but his live show gives the audience a stripped, raw, and moving take on his songs which makes his live show a great way to experience his songs.

Since it has been a long time since I’ve seen Joshua Radin live, I was excited to hear some of his newer songs live and hear the back stories of the songs from the previous new albums. One thing about going to a Joshua Radin show, let alone any singer songwriter show, you usually get more talking in between songs. Some people tend to hate this and just want to hear the songs, while others, like me, love to hear the stories. Joshua gives a good mix of both, he tends to not talk too much, but also when he does it is engaging while also being funny. Example like tonight was when someone wanted to get engaged on stage at his show, but he humorlessly declined and explained why.

Right out of the gate, the first two songs played were from his new album One Day Home, “Same Star” and “I’m Coming Home”. This new album may be one of my favorite albums by him since The Fall, it harkens at the mood that album had, but as a bonus the album has a piano companion album which is every song as a piano rendition. Joshua said his reasoning for this is fans always asking for the piano version or just acoustic of songs, and now being completely independent he decided why not make it a double album. A great idea, but I kind of wish he would go back to all his albums and rerecord piano versions for each one for it gives a completely different interpretations of his songs.

Towards mid-set his backing band takes a rest and Joshua performs solo featuring songs like “My My Love”, new song “My Favorite Memory” which has an interesting backstory, and “You Got Growin’ Up to Do” among others. During this time it is nice to get the strip back versions of these songs, the feel of this is like sitting around a campfire and taking everything in, actually a campfire type tour would be something Joshua should look into. As the band rejoined they broke into “High And Low” which Joshua had everyone stand up and clap, this song isn’t one to sit for let alone a lot of songs off the album The Fall.

Closing the night out with an encore of the humorous “Vegetable Car”, which is a fan favorite, and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” where everyone in the band gathered around one microphone and ended the night in a uplifting memory. With the extensive catalogue Joshua Radin has, the songs he chose to play made for a great set. He played at least half of his new album, played different renditions of his songs, along with the most well known songs, it truly made for a great night of songs and storytelling.