Opening Act, and Opening Bell Coffee

By now, you've probably seen the commercials for the reality TV show Opening Act.  In the show, relatively unknown musicians get the opportunity to open for a well known national artist.  The show debuts tonight at 9 p.m. CST on E!, and Dallas's own Arielle is a part of the premiere episode.  As you know, I've been a convinced fan for well over a year, and apparently the producers of the show are as convinced as I am.  And the artist she'll be opening for?  None other than Rod Stewart.

You can watch the show at home.  If you're feeling more social, then you might want to head out to Opening Bell Coffee.  Opening Bell Coffee is a fitting site for the watching party, considering the fact that it's where Arielle discovered that she would be on the show.  In fact, some of the clips used in the commercials were shot at OBC.  If you plan on going to Opening Bell, get there early.  An open mic starts at 7, and then Arielle herself will perform at 8. Here's a little sneak preview of what's to come tonight.

Icarus, Icarus, Icarus!!!

A little over a year, John Keener of Lakewood Bar and Grill urged that I give a listen to an up and coming singer-songwriter by the name of Arielle.  I believe the first song I listened to was the track "Icarus", and I found the song so beautiful that I posted the YouTube video of the song and wrote this about her.  The song even managed to chart at #44 in my countdown of my top local songs of the past five years (stay tuned for #37 later today).

As she has performed more, her live shows have continued to grow stronger.  Her show at Liquid Lounge earlier this month had her most enthusiastic audience to date, and one of the most enthusiastic audiences I've seen at any show for awhile.  That's pretty impressive, considering that Arielle only relies on a keyboard and a loop machine for her live performances.

Last night, Arielle finally debuted the official music video for the song "Icarus", directed by Brian Scott Hunt. The video is rather simple, even minimalistic in its story line.  With a song of such simplistic beauty as "Icarus", however, that makes the video perfectly fit the melody.  Plus, the cinematography in the video is quite lovely.  Even more importantly, Arielle's on-camera presence only add to the highly emotional content of the lyrics.  Check out the video below:



Speaking of the lyrics, Arielle herself made this lyrical video for the song a few weeks ago. While many YouTube videos post song lyrics, Arielle raised the bar by her creative and artistic manner that she displayed the lyrics. Don't believe me? Watch this and then try to argue that.


Finally, this is the original demo version of the song, the one through which I discovered Arielle. Consider this like the Triple Shot Thursdays back in the days of Q102. Except that this isn't classic rock, and it's three shots of the same shot, but you get the idea.

New Artist Spotlight: Arielle

It seems as if each year, a new female singer-songwriter comes along and plays a major part in defining the music of that given year. In 2009, I discovered the music of Iris Leu. Last year, it was the music of Emmeline that captured my eardrums. 2011 may not even be a quarter of the way done, but I think I've found my pick for the year. Like Emmeline, she too goes simply by her first name: Arielle. She first came to my attention thanks to John Keener at Lakewood Bar & Grill, who strongly recommended her music. It's also worth noting that he's the one who turned me on to Emmeline, suggesting that he has quite an ear for discovering talent.

Below I've included two videos that help spotlight her talent. The first one is her cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya!", and as suggested by the video, she plays all the different instruments. The video also allows for a bit of her personality to shine through, and simply have a little fun with the song



(In case you want to see more of her videos, or if the page cuts off the video as it probably will, you can click here to see all her videos.)

I also wanted to share one of her own songs entitled "Icarus". This particular video gotten repeated views for me. Arielle's vocal skills are nicely displayed here, simultaneously showing both a vocal strength and emotionally vulnerability.



Arielle performs tonight at Lakewood Bar & Grill at 8 pm. I will be catching her set; I highly recommend that you do the same.