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Ryan
Adams -
10/13/02
- State Theater -
Detroit
- MI
I've been listening to Ryan Adams for less than a year, but in that time
I've managed to amass a small collection of live shows on CD. I love
the solo acoustic shows I heard, so I was really looking forward to seeing
him solo on this tour.
There was a small line of people getting their ID's checked outside in the
cool October air. Once inside, after laughing at the Ryan Adams Sucks
t-shirts for sale, I noticed the large number of younger folks in the
audience, especially late teenage / early 20's girls. We found our
seats, 7th row from the stage just in time to catch Tegan
& Sara's set. I didn't know what to expect, and was pleasantly
surprised at their
sound - they were damn good, at times sounding like Dido or Bjork,
but were best when they sounded like Tegan
& Sara. Ryan came out and
played on a few of their songs, looking like a little kid who just
discovered guitar, having a good time. At one point in their set, he sat
in the front row drinking wine, copping a light for his cigarette from
someone sitting next to him, who didn't realize it was Ryan. A
little after
9pm
,
Ryan came onstage to wild cheers and danced around for a minute to the
obnoxious Minor Threat LP, or whatever it was he was
playing, then turned it off. He got right to it with Tomorrow. What
instantly struck me is how damn quiet the entire room became and how deliberately
slow he played. I've never seen a performer command a room so quickly
during a live show. He continued with Oh My Sweet
Carolina
,
Sweet Lil' Gal, To Be Young, and The Fools We
Are As Men, all which were beautiful. I didn't
hear anyone singing along, which was my
biggest fear, and the crowd was still very quiet during the songs.
After
commenting that he saw the Rolling Stones the night before in
Detroit
(as did I), and how he liked Ron Wood better drunk (who was drinking
from a water bottle during the previous night's show), he did a piano
version of Brown Sugar, sung to completely new music. This ballad
was in stark contrast the heavy-hitting Stones opener from the night
before, and may be the only time I'll ever see the same song performed
live so completely differently two nights in a row.
Next came the Madonna schtick,
which was actually amusing. Ryan was really funny. And to the people who
think he's not serious enough - try to
relax and have fun. The guy's still a kid and he's having a good time, so
let him. A nice Bartering Lines was next, followed by a personal
favorite, My Winding Wheel, which I just learned to play in open-G tuning
- nice job. SYLVIA PLATH followed, another great ballad, performed
wonderfully.
Then a guy's voice cuts through the silence to ask if Ryan's taking
requests. Ryan answers 'no', but then gives in, and the faceless voice says,
"I don't know the name, but the chorus goes..." and shouts out
the entire chorus to Hey There Mrs Lovely,
which Ryan busted out and which
was a highlight of the evening for me. When The Stars Go Blue followed,
with Ryan hitting some of the high notes on the chorus, his voice
nice and strong even in the higher register. Next up was Dear Chicago,
sung and played expertly.
Another request from the same guy produced a gorgeous Mara Lisa. The
request guy yelled out again for another request, "can
you play just one
more request, please?", asking for Oh My Sweet Valentine, which Ryan
misunderstood to be Oh My Sweet Carolina. He mentioned that he already
did that when the guy was out smoking pot, but he'd do the Cookie Monster
version, which was hilarious. Then, again like a little kid,
he got all excited, ran over to the piano, and a verse of SYLVIA PLATH as
Cookie Monster. Funny shit.
Then
some dude came up to the stage with a shot of Amaretto for Ryan, which he
politely declined because he's allergic to the nuts in it, and
gave it to the violin player. This caused a brief improv
number with Ryan singing, "why did you
bring me that shot?"
At
some point Ryan said, "It's a good thing there's girls, or else all
these songs would be about UFO's" and proceeded to sing about UFO's taking
him away. Call Me On Your Way Back Home and
Lovesick Blues closed out a wonderful set.
The short encore, probably given the long set, began with La Cienega
Just Smiled. Then Ryan made his string section play a Gregorian chant he
"wrote wrong" because of a note not typically seen in such
chants. It was amusing, but I wouldn't miss it. The crowd-pleasing Come
Pick Me
Up ended a great night.
I've
seen hundreds of live shows over the past 15 years or so, and this ranks
near the top, which really surprised me. I'm a singer/songwriter,
and Ryan continues to inspire me to write, which is always a good thing.
Had I known this show was going to be so good, I
might've
gotten tickets for the two
Chicago
shows. Next time, next time.
Greg
Poulos
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