Recap & Photos: Brandi Carlile’s Target Center show is a love letter to Minneapolis
March 16, 2026
This concert will be rebroadcast on The Current on Saturday, March 21, at 7:30 p.m. Central. On Feb. 21, Brandi Carlile’s Be Human: A Concert for Minneapolis touched the hearts and ears of thousands with a memorable performance at Target Center. The Current is rebroadcasting the concert this Saturday night. You’ll hear her perform songs from her latest album, Returning to Myself, your favorite songs like “The Story” and “The Joke,” covers of Coldplay and Alanis Morissette, and a goosebump-inducing finale with Singing Resistance Twin Cities.
On the Minneapolis stop of her first arena tour, Brandi Carlile turned the sold-out Target Center into a space for love and reflection on Saturday evening. Dubbed, “Be Human: A Concert for Minneapolis,” the show wasn’t just for those in the room. The powerful performance was streamed live on The Current’s airwaves and the VEEPS video streaming service, with all proceeds from the latter going to the Minnesota-based Advocates for Human Rights.
"I couldn't bring myself to get onstage in Minneapolis in front of 12,000-plus people without recognizing what Minnesotans have been going through," Carlile wrote in an Instagram post, referring to the federal ICE operation, “Operation Metro Surge.”
In between songs spanning her Americana, folk-rock, alternative country, and indie-rock catalog, Carlile returned to vocalizing her affection for the Twin Cities and Minnesota at large. She reflected on her journey through local venues over the years, from the 400 Bar to Varsity Theater, to First Avenue, to the State Fair, and, as she said excitedly, “The Zoo! So many times, the Zoo!”
A few weeks ago, Carlile joined The Current’s Jill Riley to talk about her Super Bowl performance; her eighth studio album, Returning to Myself; and Minnesota. “I want everybody in Minnesota that listens to my music or doesn't to know that you have been in my heart every second,” she said compassionately. “You have been my prayers and will continue to be.”
On stage, Carlile got more specific. “I’ve never been so inspired in my life by a city… I think one of the most powerful things I saw was the amazing women, the resistance singers, singing the song, ‘It’s Okay to Change Your Mind,’ she said. “What a powerful thing to say, ‘It’s OK to change your mind.’”
Carlile has many powerful words of her own. Returning to Myself, released last year, showcased the singer vulnerably unveiling tender reflection on identity and solitude. In singing, “And returning to myself is such a lonely thing to do / But it’s the only thing to,” on the title track, she captures the paradox of self-discovery — that one must be lost to find their way back to themself. She ended the song “Human,” with words that ask the listener to, “Let the bitterness die, fall in time to the beat / When you look in the eyes of the strangers you meet / Be human.”
In her conversation with Riley, Carlile explained how as many musicians worked on “Human,” she discovered the vastness of the song’s meaning.
“It just started to feel more and more like an anthem and a protest,” she said. “And it just developed into something that I think, and I hope, everybody can relate to. I hope it's a relief valve for you when you hear it, to remind yourself that you're human, that you're already good, you're already justified in being here, just by virtue of being human. And then once you know that, you don't turn it into apathy, you turn it into activism.”
The singer held the Target Center crowd’s attention for 30 minutes of straight acoustic music, but make no mistake: Carlile is a rock star. When she and the band dove into “Mainstream Kid” early in the set, people jumped to their feet. The hard-edged pounding drum, blazing electric guitars, and the singer’s subtle drawl continued for “Broken Horses” and “Sinners, Saints and Fools.”
The fiery, classic rock ‘n’ roll climaxed for “Church & State.” Words proclaiming the separation of “Church and State” from Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 flashed across Carlile’s impassioned face on screen. Tense energy built as she poetically articulated Americans’ post-2024 election haze: “And in the days that quickly followed / they began to turn to stone / they couldn’t stand or speak or swallow / they couldn’t get out of bed alone.”
Though Carlile sprinkled moments of rage and grief throughout the evening to capture the wide array of human emotion, she intentionally created an overarching atmosphere of joy, love, and intimate connection with the audience. She spoke fondly of her daughters, dedicated “You Without Me” to her mother, and prefaced “The Joke” with the devotion, “From my family to yourselves.” A proud grin flashed across her face as she closed the song with a verse of resilience. “Let 'em laugh while they can… the joke's on them,” she sang as if envisioning a brighter future.
Throughout the show, Carlile never slipped too far away from the theme of the passage of time. She took an audience request for "Beginning to Feel the Years,” and thankfully, there was a ukulele backstage. Longtime band members Phillip John and Timothy Jay Hanseroth joined her to gently coo as a slideshow of the three musicians over the past two decades played behind them. Carlile hit a falsetto and gazed at a past self on “War with Time” and yearned for the past on “Right on Time.”
And yet, the grounding message that drilled through the contemplation about aging was: be present. “In a moment everything could change / Anything can change,” she sang, leaving the venue with a caring reminder to cherish the present moment on “A Long Goodbye.” And what better way to encourage change than to invite Singing Resistance, the people who’ve been singing on the streets in the cold, onto the arena stage. Carlile and eight vocalists gathered to harmonize, “It’s OK to change your mind / Show us your courage / Leave this behind,” and cement the unity between the activists and the rock star standing up for the state she calls her second home.
The evening kicked off with similar messages of solidarity from Seattle indie-folk band The Head and the Heart. “Coming together through song is power and resistance,” vocalist/violinist Charity Rose Thielen said. The foot stomping tunes like “Arrow” from the band’s album Aperture, released last year, were poppy, optimistic, soulful. Piano keys and shakers on “After The Setting Sun” created a warm and cheerful atmosphere.
Guitarist/pianist/vocalist Matt Gervais put songs into the context of the city's emotions over the last few months, explaining “Beg, Steal, Borrow” is about finding the light in a time of darkness, and saying “Another Story” — with the lyrics “I see the world / A world turnin' in on itself / Are we just like / Hungry wolves howlin' in the night? — unfortunately feels even more relevant now.
“In the last several months, there has been no better demonstration of community than Minneapolis…. So I want to raise a huge round of applause to you all for what you do in this city,” Gervais said. “We’re seeing it. The world is watching.”
Set List
Returning to Myself
Human
Mainstream Kid
Broken Horses
A War With Time
A Woman Oversees
Right On Time
Who Believes in Angels?
Beginning to Feel the Years
The Things I Regret
You Without Me
The Mother
The Story
You and Me on the Rock
No One Knows Us
Sinners, Saints and Fools
Long Long Time (Linda Ronstadt)
The Joke
Hold Out Your Hand
Encore
Viva la Vida (Coldplay)
Church & State
Uninvited (Alanis Morissette)
A Long Goodbye
It’s Okay to Change Your Mind (with Singing Resistance Twin Cities)
