Review: Lauren Daigle’s show was packed with ‘favorites’ — and perhaps too much production

If you were to get the chance to ask Lauren Daigle to pick a favorite moment or song in the show she’s put together for her Kaleidoscope Tour — which stopped in Charlotte on Thursday night — you might need to prepare yourself for a pretty long-winded answer.

While setting up funkily soulful single “New,” one of the 12 songs off her 2023 self-titled album that she crammed into a 22-song set, she cheerily announced: “This song is one of my favorites in the set.”

After crooning a mash-up of ballads “He’s Never Gunna Change” and “Be Okay”: “This is one of my favorite parts of the set, because everything just gets a little still.”

Right before singing her self-worth anthem “Valuable”: “It’s one of my favorites on the record.”

As she settled onto a stool with her band and backing singers for a ‘round-the-campfire miniset on a ministage on the Spectrum Center floor: “This is one of my favorite parts of the night, because it’s like the singer-songwriter moment” ... and then she proceeded to start with the wistful “21 Days,” calling it “one of my favorites” ... before following it up with ode-to-God “Everything” — “one of my favorite favorite(s).”

Pointing out all of this is by no means a criticism. Certainly, if you’re a singer building a setlist for an arena show, you should be packing it with stuff you LOVE.

It’s just, the 32-year-old Daigle — who millions of Christian-music fans would no doubt call one of their favorite singers — tossed out the word so many times on Thursday night that I couldn’t help but get obsessed with thinking about what my favorite part of her show was.

And it turns out I have several different answers, too.

My favorite analogy came as part of her explanation for why she named her tour “Kaleidoscope” (a word that connects to both the song “Kaleidoscope Jesus” and to her nostalgia for the collection of kaleidoscopes she played with at her Aunt Tracy’s house as a kid). “When you look inside of a kaleidoscope, you put it up to the light, and it has all of these fragments, right? There’s all these different colors and shapes and sizes, and some of them have sharp edges and they’re a little rough around the edges, some of them are really, really smooth. But when you put it up to the light, there’s this beautiful image that comes through. ... And the second you turn it, it’s something different.”

It’s like the fans who come to her shows, she said. “You bring your stories, some of them are fragmented, some of you are trying to figure out how to put your heart back into your chest ... some of you have it all figured out and life is perfect. Some of you feel like you’re living the greatest joy right now, and some of you feel like you’re living the greatest sorrow.

“But ... when we take those stories and we put them up to the light, and we say, ‘God, what are you gonna do through this? How am I gonna see you? What beautiful picture are you gonna pull out of this story?’ ... We get a moment to behold Him coming and meeting with us and revealing who we are and who he is — and there’s something so powerful about that.”

(Relatedly, my favorite oopsie of Daigle’s? When she started her answer to the “Why is it named ‘Kaleidoscope’?” question with a joke and a minor gaffe: “I always tell everybody, ‘Because I wanted a really hard spelling word,’” before proceeding to — presumably accidentally — omit the “s” when spelling it out.)

My favorite allusion to some of the criticism she’s received in Christian circles about her shifting into crossover territory came while she introduced “21 Days”: “They say, ‘You can’t write love songs and God songs. It doesn’t work.’ Well, then you just combine ’em.”

My favorite admonishment: “If you’re walking a Christianity that is unkind, you need to check yourself,” Daigle told the crowd during a long sermon about negativity, trust, faithfulness and God’s purpose that she wedged into the middle of a soothing cover of Chris Tomlin’s “Good Good Father.”

And my favorite song she sang was one of her newer selections, the beautifully emotive “Thank God I Do” (a ballad that, despite having the word God in the title, is graceful in its subtlety and translates perfectly fine for the secular listener).

Which brings me to my not-so-favorite part.

I mean, what I respond to most when it comes to Lauren Daigle — and what I suspect many other fans do, too — is, well, HER. Her sensational stage presence, her effortless effervescence, her apparent authenticity and, of course, the undeniably powerful instrument that is her voice. HER, and her alone.

When she sang “Thank God I Do,” it was essentially just her and a keyboardist. Her voice and a guy playing the piano. Whether you love her as a fan of Christian music or love her as a fan of the mainstream, there’s no doubt either way that hearing her like this is divine.

That said, I must admit to being disappointed that the majority of her current show includes so much production: three backing singers, three men on brass instruments, a DJ/synth guy, a drummer, a percussionist, a bassist, a guitarist, loosely choreographed dancing, lots of movement, tons of color.

I get it. It’s an arena show with a catwalk and nearly 10,000 people. She’s graduated from her Winter Jam days, and her Outcry Tour days, and from playing in smaller-scale places like Ovens and Bojangles.

There’s obviously going to be some expectation that she needs to step things up.

This isn’t to say that a couple of songs didn’t benefit from the big-band, whoop-it-up, party-time treatment. (I’ll throw out jaunty opener “These Are the Days” and the rousing, Adele-ish “Still Rolling Stones” as examples.) I want those who were there to think about this seriously, though: Would you have complained if the show had just been Daigle and her voice, with maybe about half the number of people on stage with her at most?

I almost feel bad about saying anything negative, because her aura and her message and her music is so endearingly hopeful and positive. But I’m also inspired by her authenticity, and I wouldn’t be being my authentic self if I didn’t tell the truth about how the show made me feel.

It’s like one of those kaleidoscopes Daigle talked about: It had all these different colors and shapes and sizes, and some of them were really, really smooth, while others were rough around the edges. In certain lights, this beautiful image came through.

Maybe when we turn it — i.e., when she comes back to Charlotte next time — it’s something a little bit different.

Perhaps a little bit more of just HER.

Lauren Daigle’s setlist

1. “These Are The Days”

2. “Waiting”

3. “New”

4. “Look Up Child”

5. “Trust in You”

6. “He’s Never Gunna Change”

7. “Be Okay”

8. “Valuable”

9. “Hold On to Me”

10. “Kaleidoscope Jesus”

11. “Rescue”

12. “Salvation Mountain”

13. “Thank God I Do”

14. “21 Days”

15. “Everything”

16. “Good Good Father”

17. “Love Me Still”

18. “How Can It Be”

19. “O’ Lord”

20. “Turbulent Skies”

21. “Still Rolling Stones”

21. “You Say”