Notes:

1. Ryan Adams (vocals/guitar); Caitlin Cary (fiddle/vocals); Ed Crawford (guitar); Jenni Snyder (bass); Mike Daly (mutli); Skillet Gilmore (drums).
2. Set list based on below review.
3. See J. Holdren's excellent pre-show interview with Ryan here:  http://www.jholdren.homestead.com/WT.html 

Sexton, Paul. Rev. of Whiskeytown. MOJO May 1998.

Live Review

WHISKEYTOWN

NASHVILLE EXIT/IN

It had the aura of Whiskeytown's spritiual home: a college-feel club in the back streets of Music City USA, and with the local homage to Firewater, the Jack Daniels Distillery, just down the street a piece, the Exit/In is a clean air version of any British university venue, but with colcer beer and a few belts and boots added. Late in the evening, we were in the tranches spitting blood and grit with one of the sharpest edges in the American roots rock tool box.

It's three months since the Geffen Parole Board got around to granting Strangers Almanac a British release on the Outpost imprint. Stateside, the albumw as issued last summer to a reaction not just tepid but positively ilmanntered for a record with such a sulphurous spark about it. So it warmed the cockles like a slug of sour mash to see such an animated, word perfect devotion to the band from the young shavers down front.

"We're like a cockroach," ventured Whiskeytown Mayor Ryan Adams. "You can't kill us, you can just move us out."

Adams looked the spit of Exile-era Keith, all ragged glamour and feral danger. This show marked the end of the latest tour for this restocked band, whose mercurial roll call now includes Ed Crawford on guitar, bassist Jenni Snyder, and keyboardist/lap steel custodian Mike Daly. At the core remain Adams, dauntless fiddle and vocal lieutenant Caitlin Cary and skillet Gilmore. (Cool, a drummer named for a frying pan!)

The opened with the new "Wanna Know Why" and the joint was soon chugging to "16 Days," a STrangers Almanac treasure which showcases Adam's [sic] copyright combination of swagger and sadness. As you suspected from the recorded evidence, this is a sensitive and poetic writer who mops up his tears with copius use of the house electricity supply, and especially some heroic fiddling from Cary.

There was a delightful push and pull at work as the set lurched from the post punk snarl of Adams' last band, the Patty Duke Syndrome, via the southern drawl of the Stones' steel guitar era and ont to the oft-stated Replacements and Jayhawks connections. Then they shone like Neil's Harvest Moon "Dancing with the Women at the Bar," introduced as a "song about a slice of pizza and a bad idea."

At encore time, Ryan takes a convincing solo acoustic turn as the beautiful loser on the sad lovesick "Avenues." Like a good bourbon, Whiskeytown songs taste like they've been maturing in the barrel for years.

SET LIST: WANNA KNOW WHY/16 DAYS/EXCUSE ME/TOO DRUNK TO DREAM/MIDWAY PARK/TODAY/TURNAROUND/HOUSES ON THE HILL/DANCIN’ WITH THE WOMEN AT THE BAR/EVERYTHING I DO/YESTERDAY’S NEWS/AVENUES/BREATHE/DRANK LIKE A RIVER