""After the long awaited Tilburg gig, I left early for Utrecht and winded up sitting right in front of Ryan in the first row!  This time I brought two friends and I was curious what their impressions were.

 

But first my review:

This time Ryan HAD a setlist. I had a quick look at it and saw a.o.:

 

Twice As Bad As Love

Sweetest Decline

She Wants To Play Hearts

Abbagail (as written on the setlist) and

Why Do They Leave

 

So I sat down and had high hopes! Maybe this was gonna be a killer show like Helsinki or Dublin 2.  Before, Ryan had joined Jesse Malin on stage, so we knew that he was in a good mood (even when we heard that he'd catched a cold). The show started of the same way as in Tilburg:  Ryan with a knitted hat, behind the piano singing Sweet Lil Gal and photographers who were taking pictures (they're allowed to do that during the first three songs). Then he sat down with his hat deep over his eyes and sang Oh My Sweet Carolina.  While performing "To Be Young" he turned his back to the photographers (again) and when they left he went to the piano to play Shadowlands and said something like: "I just didn't have a Kodak-moment".

He rushed thru the setlist (one national newspaper had commented his long breaks between the songs during his Tilburg gig), playing it as it was written down (after Shadowlands he played: Twice As Bad As Love; Touch, Feel and Lose; SYLVIA PLATH (using a lot of nasty words in relation to John Hughes (?)); You Will Always Be The Same; Dear Chicago) and when he should have played Bartering Lines he started a (for me at least) new song which he played on his electr. dobro and which was VERY loud (one of my friends closed his ears during the song) and the year 1987 was in the lyrics a lot (so maybe that is the title?/ Maybe it's a cover?)  He returned to the setlist again: Sweetest Decline on the grand piano and a BEAUTIFUL She Wants To Play Hearts!  He left stage after these songs (an hour and 15 minutes) and returned within a couple of minutes with his songbook.  He started joking around and played Oh My Sweet Chocolate Cookie on request. And he did an Elmo imitation as well! Telling us that Elmo was cool!  After loudly blowing his nose in a towel he played Thank You Louise and another "new"(?) song which could be called: "Learn How To Say Goodbye"  He went back to the setlist and played The Ballad Of Carol Lynn (dedicating it to his troubled friends of Oasis). I noticed his voice was getting in trouble and after this song Ryan mumbled something and left stage (in a hurry) for the second (and last) time.

Immediately after he left stage the lights went on and the crew started cleaning up, leaving us all in a state of confusion. The show was good, he played some great new songs but I had the feeling that a lot of people expected more (as I did).  So it was a bit of a cold shower after a warm bath.

 

Back to my friends: one of them was very impressed by Ry's performance and did enjoy the show very much (even tho it was a short one). The other one said that he'd never seen such a talented guy with such a disrespect for his audience! He said he thought that Ryan didn't make many new fans this evening and his opinion was affirmed this morning by another friend of mine who won tickets to the show and went there "open minded", not knowing Ryan.

He said the same thing: high quality songs, great voice, total lack of communication with and respect for the audience.

 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the show ;-) and I think I will listen back to it many times because the songs he played were performed well and the sound in the venue was excellent! (The Stones will play there too next year).  Unfortunately I can't go to the Groningen gig this evening, I hope for sure that somebody will tape that show (just ask for Turk or Steve and be there early!)

 

I think that I missed one song (or forgot which song it was) but there was a song that he played with the cellist almost breaking her fingers over the notes she had to play!

The violin joined too. I'll be back on that one.

 

A couple of remarks: Ryan didn't drink one sip of wine this time (in Tilburg he emptied a bottle). Turk cleaned all mike's with alcohol before Ry came on stage; He smoked a couple of cigarettes (the crowd wasn't allowed to smoke!) but not as much as he used to; Ryan said something BEFORE he started to play (something like: Hi, how are ya doing?) and most important: the show was taped for Dutch Radio! I heard from a technician that it was taped for (national) Radio 2 (KRO). He didn't know when it will be broadcasted tho!

 

Bert Koopman