“I already feel like doing it again, honey.”
Those were the opening lines of what would become one of my favorite songs of all time: “Stay High” by Brittany
Howard. A multi-talented musician, Howard first rose to prominence in her band Alabama Shakes. Four Grammy
Awards in, she decided to pursue her own solo project, exploring a softer and more intimate sound than Alabama Shakes’s urgent emotional sound and lyrical immediacy.
With my first introduction into her new sound — with “Stay High” — from the very first notes, the sparkly accents, the bass, I fell in love. I watched as Terry Cruz drove around with a huge smile on his face, singing along. I proceeded to then watch way too many videos of Howard singing live and acoustic, trying to figure out how she does it; and by it, I mean reaching out and changing my insides by singing a single word.
This past week, watching Howard perform at the Greek Theatre, I had the chance to come closer to a conclusion.
Sauntering onto the stage, Howard started off the night with “I Don’t,” as gentle guitar sounds wrapped around her airy falsetto while she sang “Does anyone remember what it felt like to laugh all night and sleep in late, not worry about anyone or anything?”
She immediately went into “He Loves Me,” grooving to the audio clips she played in the background that accompanied her soaring vocals and the electric guitar that pierced through. “Patience” saw Howard reflect on a relationship in an intensely emotionally raw way, as she lamented, “How long am I supposed to wait before I tell you I love you? How long before I’m a fool?”
Howard, of course, sang “Stay High,” and, as expected, it was a high point of the evening. Every high note she sang
left those around me audibly gasping, and the band was beaming the entire time, especially so when the crowd yelled along, “I just want to stay high with you.”
Howard also joked around with the audience a few times between songs, cheekily saying things to her ex like, “Since
I’m on the mic, I’m going to list all the reasons I was right and you were wrong!”
Other highlights included “Goat Head,” “Prove It to You,” “Power to Undo,” and “To Be Still,” as Howard both
showed off her acrobatic vocal chops and closed her eyes and lost herself in the music. The lights above her flickered into different colors to fit the mood of each section, and she played an electric guitar as though it was part of her body.
The entire night, whether Howard was moving in slow motion through the band’s instrumentation or dancing with
her backup singers, she moved with the music. And when Howard sings, it’s as though she is siphoning the energy of every orb near her. Her mouth would move into the shape of the note, her hands would grab almost as if to hold the sound before her, she’d twist her eyes shut to escape into her most poignant lyrical phrases.
I’ve never seen a singer embody their music so fully. It felt as though these weren’t songs she had written, they were songs she created and continues to mold and shape in real time. That’s how she changed me so much a few years back, and how she continues to do the same to audiences everywhere. After she played her last song, the guy next to me laughed and went, “She’s insane.”
Howard is truly a delight to see live, and anyone would be lucky to see her. I have a hunch that the world would
collectively smile a bit more if we all made like Terry Cruz and sang to her in the car.