Just imagine: a show being performed in a cabaret setting, where the invited guests sit at the table placed on a small stage in the very center of an intimate venue. They tell stories about songs they sing, while you sip your drink sitting just beside them. Throw in LP singing Billy Steinberg’s “Alone.” Heaven, isn’t it.
LP, Nick Poulios, Billy Steinberg, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Photo courtesy of Nick Poulios
Especially when you find a video proving that it really did happen. The event is called Liner Notes: Songwriters, Stories and Music with Rita Wilson and Friends, and the one in question took place in December of 2015 at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse. Reportedly, LP was Billy Steinberg’s guest. Even though Liner Notes is an extraordinary and refined occasion, it was possible to be there that night – all you had to do was buy a ticket for more than a fair price.
LP was accompanied by a piano, which makes this video even more of a rarity, and she was singing with a color she very rarely uses nowadays. “Alone” is a big song and one thing is certain – her version showed the composition’s full beauty, and its always moving and never-getting-old minor to major key change between the verse and the chorus. There is power, there is intensity, there is engagement in the way she sings, as always, but most of all you can hear a genuine heartbreak in her voice. LP blew away not only us, you can tell it by looking at the faces of all those people who were sitting at the table with her. And she was supported by a fantastic pianist, who played “Alone” not only flawlessly, but also fiercely, just as this song and this vocalist deserve.