For music lovers everywhere, this post-pandemic summer season has seen their dreams of once again being able to enjoy live entertainment, swelling crowds, and artists whose performances paints smiles painted on their faces come true. This is the season, that sees so many stars across different genres back out on the tour circuit again. This past Tuesday night saw Brandi Carlile, one of the most successful and beloved music stars in the industry, return to the legendary Tanglwood, the summer home of the Boston Pops.

Clad is a luminous yellow pant suit, Carlile was absolutely beaming as she took to the stage and proceeded to hold an audience of 18,000 people in the palm of her hand. From her opening song, the tried and true rocker “Broken Horses,” to her closing number where, in a soft and silky voice she offered-up a dreamy cover of Judy Garland’s signature song “Somewhere over the Rainbow” from the 1939 classic film, “The Wizard of Oz,” Carlile provided fans a memorable evening.

Best known for her emotion-grabbing ballads that showcase her incredible multi-octave vocal and note-extending voice, Carlile captivated the massive sellout crowd that braved torrential monsoon-like rain at the mid-point of her set list. The pounding rain did nothing to dampen the crowd’s sunny enthusiasm in any way.

Across the years, it has been my observation that one way to gage just how unique and special a performer is in a live venue, is when their concerts feel unique, and like an event. More than a performer going through a laundry list of songs, Brandi Carlile is that artist whose concerts are indeed unique, and always establish a palpable connection with concert-goers. One can feel and see it happening, and it’s a beautiful thing. For she’s that mega-talented performer whose voice, personality and candor reach out and instantly bonds with every person out there in the dark who collective gaze is fixed on the stage in front of them that lights up the evening. For many, myself included, Carlile is all about employing her voice, her personality, and her humanness to reach out and strike a deep chord in people. Watching her perform, and then looking around at the audience members, I could see the bond and the excitement on the faces of every person that my eyes fell upon.

Carlile was backed up by a very large band that included the always crowd-pleasing identical twins, Tim and Phil Hanseroth. The multi-talented and high-energy twins are an intricate component in Carlile’s stage show, as standing between the two mirror imaged musical bookends, the three-part harmony that they create is breathtakingly beautiful. The Hanseroth brothers have been with Carlile since the very beginning of her career when she played as a street busker in the Seattle area. At that point in her life, Carlile was a young unknown with a huge undiscovered talent, and a guitar case filled with distant dreams.

Between songs he shared a long-ago remembrance of those struggling days when, as fate seemed to intervene, she found herself on an airplane sitting right behind the legendary Graham Nash. She slipped a Demo tape, along with her e-mail address, between the seats. Nash reach over and took the offered material, and after listening to her material, e-mailed her back that same night. Yes, indeed, as my Step Father used to say to me when I was a teenager, “In life, it’s not always what you know, it’s also who you know.” For a struggling young artist to suddenly be find herself on the radar screen of a star like Graham Nash, and to have had him like the music that she created, was a gift.

Throughout the evening her repertoire danced around her impressive song catalogue as well as wonderful cover versions of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” and Elton John’s (who she is close friends with) “Rocket Man.” As for some of the standout songs in her play set that resonated with her audience were, “The Eye,” a beautiful three-part harmony piece performed by Carlile and the twins, her mega hit single, “I was Made for You,” and “You and Me on a Rock,” which she introduced by sharing her childhood memories of attending “Vacation Bible School.” Perhaps the night’s most memorable moment came when, leading into the poignant song, “The Mother,” she shared with the crowd a beautiful and honest outpouring of the unconditional love that she has for her eight year old daughter, Evangeline. Everyone in the audience hung, as one, on her lyrics.

Due to the pandemic, followed by two outbreaks of Covid within her tour group, this concert was postponed and rescheduled three times. So it was a very long wait, but one that worth it. For this writer, and 18,000 other people as well, Brandie Carlile took a dark and stormy night and transformed Tanglewood into a magical place that seemed to be bathed in the glow of sunshine. As an artist, she has traveled a long and often difficult road to stardom, and with her lovely pitch-perfective voice singing “Somewhere over the Rainbow” still echoing down the hallway of my mind as I write this, what’s crystal clear is that Brandi Carlile has found that that land where “the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

Paul Collins is a freelance writer from Southborough, Massachusetts.