Haley Reinhart Shines Bright in St. Paul

Last updated on February 18th, 2022 at 10:05 pm

Do you remember what you were doing at around 8:00 PM on Wednesday, May 5th, 2011? I do, and it’s a night I know I will never forget. That is the night I heard Haley Reinhart, then a contestant on the wildly popular TV show American Idol perform the song “House of the Rising Sun.”

To this day, her version of the song is the most impeccable I have ever heard, and it still finds itself in regular rotation on my YouTube playlists. Haley has gone on to have an amazing career, releasing four full-length albums and touring the entire world, but I simply will never forgive the voters of the tenth season of American Idol for picking Scotty McCreery as the champion instead of the rightful owner of that award.

Obviously, this all happened almost eight years ago, and I have no right to still be as upset by all of that as I am, but I didn’t have a platform to dispell my anger in 2011, and I do now, so deal with it! I’ve also had the opportunity to see both of these artists perform within the last six months, and it’s painfully obvious who the more entertaining, and overall more talented, individual was…

Anyway, the reason I finally have a platform to share my thoughts on the total sham the tenth season of American Idol is that Haley Reinhart brought her Lo-Fi Soul Tour to the Twin Cities on Monday, and I had the pleasure of seeing her perform!

Haley Reinhart Amsterdam Bar & Hall St. Paul, MN April 15th 2019 Lo-Fi Soul Tour — Photo Credit: Justin Bailey

The show was originally scheduled to take place at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, but due to their last-minute booking of Dave Chappelle’s Minneapolis Residency, the show was moved across the river to Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St. Paul. It was a relatively light crowd, even for a Monday night, but the fans in attendance were as energized as they come, singing back every word and dancing along all night.

Performing for nearly an hour and a half, Haley’s setlist was obviously a little heavy on the new album, which was great because the album is absolutely phenomenal, but she made sure to sprinkle in some crowd-favorites from her first three albums as well.

Of course, she couldn’t go the whole night without performing some of her famous renditions of other people’s music, and we were treated with her versions of “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes, a medley of “Sunday Afternoon” by The Kinks with “So Fresh, So Clean” by OutKast, “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley (which got her an RIAA Certified Gold Record), as well as the most famous of them all, her production of “Creep” by Radiohead.

Regardless of what she was actually singing, the highlight of the night was simply her voice. The vocal range she has, not to mention the power she’s able to put behind it, is something truly special to experience in person, and I found myself standing with my mouth open, just staring in awe multiple times during the show.