A Love-Filled Night With Sabrina Claudio at Chicago’s House of Blues

Photojournalist: Kiera

Sabrina Claudio drew a full and completely adoring crowd to her March 19th tour stop at Chicago’s House of Blues, as part of her ongoing Fall In Love With Her Tour. 

While not disregarding the remarkable vocals delivered by Claudio, one of the most memorable elements of the evening’s show was the deep outpouring of love flowing in both directions between Claudio and her crowd. The relationship demonstrated between Sabrina Claudio and her fans was deeply endearing. Sabrina disclosed at the start of her performance, through tears, that she had been fighting the flu and that it was impacting her ability to give the performance she had envisioned for Chicago’s crowd. Immediately, fans began shouting encouragement and sharing that there was nothing to be apologetic over – it was clear that they were eager for whatever show Claudio had the energy to deliver. 

Encouraged by fans to sit and preserve her energy, Claudio was able to persevere, performing seated center stage on a small stool and immediately transforming the enormous House of Blues into what felt like an intimate album release show venue. Understated and cozy visual details, from soft diffused lighting to layers of ornate rugs strewn across the stage, only amplified the warmth of the experience. Claudio’s gentle serenade had, as appropriately stated from a front-row fan, listeners “in our feelings, girl!” Claudio glided through her set list of beautiful ballads with brief apologetic and disheartened intermissions about her illness, which were of course met with immediate rejection by her crowd. 

A surprise towards the middle of her set saw an excited fan designated with the responsibility of pulling a surprise song via hat draw. The song chosen, “Frozen,” was then improvised by Claudio and her band. The song, clearly a fan favorite with well over 100M listens across streaming platforms, evoked a roaring and overjoyed response from the crowd (with one fan emotionally declaring “I’m literally going to cry.”). Though truly, the crowd’s response was similarly delighted for all of her setlist picks. 

A beautiful collection of songs from Claudio’s most recent album release, Fall In Love With Her, and other fan favorite tracks, the show is a must-see. Though her North America tour leg concludes on March 29th, the show will go on in a short European show run between April 27th and May 7th.