Carly Rae Jepsen Brings Emotion and Dedication to the Capital

The newly-renovated Bronson Centre really feels like a concert venue now, and not the high school auditorium it once was. The curved hanging speakers look nice, and the dark standing-room floors (the floor seats are gone!) draw attention to the stage. I can report that the sound system was just right: not too loud, not too quiet.

Carly Rae Jepsen’s fans, on the other hand, were much louder.

Cheering out at the end of each song (as one does–but more so), with dozens of people in the audience singing every word to all the hits and half of her back catalog, the connection with the audience was strong. Two fans even got engaged in the audience that night; Jepsen noticed, and dedicated a song to them (congratulations, Jeff and Morgan). “Call me Maybe” had the most intense fan reaction perhaps, though it was the only song published before 2015 that she played that night, suggesting that the acclaim her newer work has found is matched by fan demand. The funniest moment came when she introduced “Julien”; she said that she dated a man named Julien for three months in her 20’s, but that she’s not in love with him. “Don’t call me!” she finished, surely the most sure sign Carly Rae Jepsen can send to a man that she’s not interested.

The backing band didn’t often stand out (which is not to say that they never did), but they played the tight, Bouncy synth tunes with precision. The songs reminded me a little of Off the Wall or Thriller-era Michael Jackson, with funky hooks and clean productions, generating catchy hooks by focusing on the most interesting parts of the songs and avoiding unnecessary instruments. Her drummer occasionally demonstrated an ability to play drums like he had three hands, and her keyboard player also did a great job playing saxophone on two songs. Unfortunately the sax riff was merely synthesized on Run Away With Me, her best track (yes, I went there). That song’s opening riff hints at the intensity that the song builds to in the chorus; after the pre-chorus builds tension, she calls back to the riff with an “ooh-ooooh” that mirrors its rhythm. This connects the beat to Jepsen herself, the emotional core of the song, and to her passionate request: “run away with me”.

Everyone onstage looked like they were having fun, especially Jepsen. It must be nice to get a hundred people singing the chorus to your song, and she made it feel that way. She had a genuine-looking smile on her face as she belted out intense emotional choruses, and then came back down for another intimate verse about the struggles of love.

Opener and 604 Records labelmate RALPH was a good fit for Jepsen’s tour: a fellow Canadian pop singer with catchy synth riffs and interesting lyrics about relationships. Songs like “Gimme” showed her unique lyrical style, touching on themes of materialism and desire.

Jepsen brought the same polished, practiced feel to her performance that her band did, with hardly a note out of place (indeed, none that I noticed). But with songs about falling in love, breaking up, “Boy Problems”, or fears of being “Too Much” in a relationship (If you’re with the right one, “it’s never too much”, Jepsen told the crowd), she showed her greatest strength: an ability to sell intensity and passion.  There are other female pop singers, but few can sing about love so that you feel it in your core like Jepsen does. Through all the planning and practice that the concert demonstrated, that powerful sense of passion shone through: somehow, despite all the times she’s sung these songs and danced those moves, her choruses still rang with the heart of someone falling in love for the first time.

Written by Aaron Nava