A different Brandi Carlile heads to Minneapolis with a message

Expect a different Brandi Carlile on Saturday, Feb. 21, at the sold-out Target Center in Minneapolis.

How’s that?

She’ll still have that rangy, deeply emotional voice that cracks at the right time on ballads, that crackerjack band featuring twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth, and many of the songs that have captivated Twin Cities fans for the past 20 years.

What’s different?

“Everything about it is different in the best possible way,” she said Wednesday before going onstage in Toronto. “It’s like having a new job.”

She’s never had a production system of lights and sound equipment traveling with her, just used the in-house equipment at whatever venue she was performing.

“I have lights and a big booming PA system and it’s all very dramatic and exciting,” she said. “It reminds me of the shows when I was a kid. The diva shows like Celine Dion, Bette Midler, where it kind of veers into real diva territory. That’s what’s different about this.”

“I was very nervous until I had those first dates under my belt,” she said. “It has taken me a second to find my rhythm. So when we get to Minneapolis, I’m really going to be in it.”

She will be coming to Minneapolis with a sense of purpose, especially after what the area has been through with ICE’s Operation Metro Surge. She’s dubbed this show Be Human: A Concert for Minneapolis.

“My message is one of love and reconciliation and protection for displaced people. I have a long record of standing behind this,” said the singer, whose current single “Human” echoes those themes.

“The way that we treat immigrants, economic migrants, asylum seekers, refugees is the rise and fall of humanity. This is a make-or-break issue for human beings. When we start dehumanizing and being violent toward immigrants, we’re tumbling down a really slippery slope.”

She said the way the people of the Twin Cities stood up to federal agents to protect their fellow residents was “so inspiring to me as someone who just loves Minne and feels like it’s home to me. It was hard for me to not to get on a plane. I just wanted to be with y’all.”

“It’ll be a two-hour message of solidarity,” the activist promised. “You guys are my family.”

It goes against conventional music-biz wisdom that Carlile is selling out arenas even though she’s never had a big hit single or a viral moment.

“Nobody’s ever mentioned it to me before, but I think about it all the time,” she said. “I do think a hit is a little bit of a kiss of death in a way. For one thing, I get to play whatever I want on the set list. I have a career’s worth of songs and not ones I’m beholden to or that anybody’s sick of.”

Carlile has built her career the old-fashioned way: hitting the road. Since 2005, she has performed more than 30 times in the Twin Cities, from the 400 Bar and First Avenue to Fine Line and the Fillmore to the State Theatre and the State Fair to the Basilica Block Party and the Minnesota Zoo.

She has flipped the usual script by using TV as her radio, the traditional launching pad for careers. She has serenaded on numerous talk shows and “Saturday Night Live” (four times), and since she gave a knock-out performance of “The Joke” on the 2018 Grammys, she has become a go-to singer for various awards and tribute shows.

On her Human Tour, the Seattle-area singer/songwriter is drawing on her 2025 project, “Returning to Myself.” Her eighth solo album was a bit of a refresh.

“When I had my big moment with ‘The Joke,’ everything changed so quickly. I didn’t know how long it would last. So I did everything that came my way. I wanted to sing with anyone and everyone. I sat on the edge of my bed and cried, too.

“I didn’t really check in with myself in the profound ways that it takes when you make an album in your mid-40s. And I did in making ‘Returning to Myself.’ I kind of went inward. I’m back out now.”

In a wide-ranging conversation, the gregarious Carlile touched on other subjects.

Q: What did you learn from producing albums for others like Tanya Tucker and Lucius that you brought to your own recordings?

Carlile has worked with T Bone Burnett, Rick Rubin, Dave Cobb, Trina Shoemaker, Shooter Jennings and others.

She has become fond of dealing with multiple producers at the same time, as she did with Aaron Dessner, Andrew Watt and Justin Vernon on “Returning to Myself.”

“It was fun to have these differing opinions, and it creates a lot of tension, and through that tension comes really interesting, boundary-pushing art.”

Q: Is Justin Vernon, who lives nearby in Eau Claire, Wis., going to sit in with you in Minneapolis?

A: First thing I did was call him and ask him. He’s not in town, but he gave me a whole bunch of his family members to put on the list. That’s my boy.

A: He doesn’t believe in musical rules or boundaries or even fashion rules or boundaries. I have a slight problem with rapidity and expectation and people-pleasing. Elton just smashes all of that with a sledgehammer. Being his friend is really good for me in those ways.

Q: What have you learned from Joni Mitchell?

A: Joni has really, really high standards. One thing that’s changed about my creative output since I’ve met Joni Mitchell is that I won’t write pedestrian songs anymore. If I can’t run up to the house and play it for Joni, it’s not going to come out of the pen. I write less songs, but I can stand behind them.

Q: Your two daughters, now 11 and 7, have been the subject of some of your songs. What won’t you write about them in songs now?

A: A lot of things. They’re starting to value their autonomy and their privacy. They used to be mine, my little stories to tell about my little girls. They’re turning into young women with their own personalities and beliefs, and some of those things can be shared and some can’t. I have to do a lot of asking them now before I divulge anything about them in a song or otherwise.

A: I tend to go to the outskirts and go fishing every time I’m there. I get a lot of mosquito bites. I’ve always wanted to go north and go ice fishing. That’s my dream. My family’s from north Minnesota, little town called Waubun. They ice fish every year, and they send me these pictures and make me insanely jealous.

Opening: The Head and the Heart

When: 7 p.m. Feb. 21

Where: Target Center, 600 1^st Av. N., Mpls.

Tickets: sold out, resale only; axs.com