Julien Baker stopped by The Late Late Show to perform “Favor,” a track off her recent album Little Oblivions. Accompanied by her band, the musician gave a soulful rendition of the song inside an empty venue.
Baker also spoke with host James Corden for a few minutes ahead of the performance and discussed her upcoming U.S. tour, which kicks off in September. “It is indescribable to try to explain how much I’m looking forward to playing some shows in front of a real live audience,” Baker said. “What I am looking forward to most is the electricity that happens in a live setting.”
Last month, Baker performed three songs off Little Oblivions for CBS This Morning’s latest “Saturday Sessions,” including “Hardline,” “Heatwave” and “Faith Healer.” Little Oblivions is the musician’s third album and was written in 2019 prior to the pandemic. It finds Baker reflecting on her mental health and sobriety.
“I just didn’t realize how much was there that I hadn’t dealt with, and how much my negative coping mechanisms were going to continue to add new problems,” Baker told Rolling Stone last year. “I re-examined a whole lot of things: My relationship to substances and my identity as sober or straight edge, and how those things are all different and what that means. That was a very loaded process, and I didn’t handle it well.”
Her upcoming tour launches on September 3rd in Birmingham, Alabama, and features Thao and Katie Malco as openers. The tour also includes Europe and U.K. stops in 2022.
