On Sept. 25, Bareilles will start a 30-city headlining tour in Portland, Ore., including stops at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and Webster Hall in New York. The size of the venues gives Bareilles a chance to have a full band backing her-her previous headlining tour was acoustic-and include some theatrical stage design elements, she says.
Fans who preordered the album on her website, SaraBMusic.com, automatically received priority access to presale concert tickets on Aug. 3, three days before the dates went on sale to the general public.
Bareilles’ live show has also spawned several releases: Her iTunes-exclusive “Live Sessions EP” has sold 30,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and she released the CD/DVD “Between the Lines: Sara Bareilles Live at the Fillmore” in 2008.
For now, Bareilles’ touring is confined to the continental United States. “Internationally, Canada and Australia is going [day and date] with us,” Scott says. “She’s just so busy in the U.S. that we’re staggering some of the countries because we can’t have her at the same place at the same time. Those are some of her biggest supporters where it makes the most sense.”
Besides gabbing on Twitter-a recent tweet from Bareilles reads, “At home, sick, watching Oprah talk about hoarding. Feeling sicker by the moment. Gotta go buy more stuff”-she’s been documenting the making of “Kaleidoscope Heart” in a video blog on her website,
IN TUNE
Coming off the success of “Love Song” was daunting for Bareilles, who says that she took procrastination to an art form while preparing to write “Kaleidoscope Heart.” (In her bio for the album, she admits that she spent a significant amount of time shopping for throw pillows at Target in lieu of putting notes on paper.)
“I am the tortoise of the ‘Tortoise and the Hare’ story,” she says. “It definitely takes me a little while to process things and make decisions about what I like and what I don’t like.”
But everything clicked once she sat down with producer Neal Avron, who has previously worked with Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park and Weezer. “I looked at his discography, and I was like, ‘Fall Out Boy? I don’t see how I fit into this at all,’ ” she says. “But Neal and I met and it felt like a good fit. He really listened. He has no ego, and I love that quality in someone.”
Avron encouraged Bareilles to stay true to her instincts and make “Kaleidoscope Heart” as personal as “Little Voice.” Bareilles says the centerpiece song on the album is the second track, “Uncharted.” “I was worrying [to a friend] about how I was never going to be able to write another song, and I was starting a lot of songs but I couldn’t finish any of them,” she says. “I was really worried about stepping into the unknown and I didn’t know what to expect the second time around . . . and that afternoon, I sat down and wrote ‘Uncharted.’ ” The title of the album, in fact, comes from a lyric in that song.
For Bareilles, “Kaleidoscope Heart” is another album where the personal becomes public-but this time around, she’s prepared. “Nothing is brand-new to me anymore,” she says. “I don’t have to be so consumed with learning how to get through it. I’m just like, ‘Oh, I’ve been here before, so now let’s just see how today can be a great day.’ “