Sep 21 2007
Trying to Find a Peaceful Song To Sing When Everything Goes Wrong
It’s sad to say, but a Ryan Adams show is a big gamble these days. You can really never tell what you’re gonna get. It could start off really strong and then he could have a minor meltdown and storm off stage. As much as I love the guy, he sure can piss me off sometimes. The first time I saw him, he was just starting to tour for the Cold Roses album. That night in Toronto was one of those bad nights. Ryan & the Cardinals came on stage, launched into this new song, I hadn’t heard called “Magnolia Mountain”. Wow. It looked like we were on our way to a mindblowing show. Well, shortly after that, Ryan finished his first bottle of wine. Then some aborted songs followed, lots of sound problems and tuning, then bitching at the audience (if you are a fan of Ryan’s this must sound very familiar). Although, through the lows, he could still bust out a great tune, it wasn’t enough to salvage the night. So that was my introduction to Ryan Adams shows.
Fast forward to Wednesday night. I have been seeing and hearing all these stellar acoustic sets lately, so I was prepared for a great, if a bit static, show. Couple that with the fact that Ryan recently kicked his habits, I figured it was a sure thing. Then I hear that the previous show in Portland, Ryan had another one of those bad nights. So, I started to prepare myself for something different.
We were lucky. The crowd was very respectful in Montreal and Ryan kept mentioning that he loves the city. He had spent a couple days there, so maybe that alone put him in a good mood. I don’t care what did it, He and the Cardinals put on an amazing show. Like I said, I was expecting an Acoustic set, but there wasn’t an acoustic guitar to be seen. All rock tonight. I won’t go in to song-by-song reviews, cause it would get too long, but my highlights were Off Broadway, Dear John, I See Monsters, Silvia Plath and Cold Roses. Those 5 were simply breathtaking, which is not to take anything at all away from the rest of the show.
Ryan was very talkative all night, and was very happy to be there. He and the band joked a lot… definitely the best stage banter I’ve seen in a while. I couldn’t be happier with the show. The only bummer was the security goon staring holes in us the whole time… He caught us early with the camera and didn’t take his eyes off us, so we got nothin’. HOWEVER!! A very great man named Bill got a perfect soundboard recording. I have encoded it with high quality VBR to lessen quality loss. Enjoy!!
1. Please Do Not Let Me Go
2. Peaceful Valley
3. Beautiful Sorta
4. Wildflowers
5. Off Broadway
6. Dear John
7. Goodnight Rose
8. Blue Hotel
9. Mockingbird
10.Magnolia Mountain
11.Shakedown on 9th Street
12.I See Monsters
-Encore 1-
13.SYLVIA PLATH (Ryan solo piano)
14.Sweet Lil’ Gal (Ryan solo piano)
15.Rescue Blues (Ryan piano)
16.Dear Chicago
17.Cold Roses
18.Games
-Encore 2-
19.Nightbirds
20.Goodnight Hollywood Boulevard
-Encore 3-
21.Easy Plateau
Click the link below for some videos from the Yahoo! live set. Great stuff.
Dear John
I See Monsters
Down In A Hole (Alice In Chains Cover)
I Taught Myself How To Grow Old
Great show, thanks for the set.
First of all i would like to thank Bill, great recording man, really good quality.
Second, from what you’re saying, it must be hard to spend the money on a ticket to see him, especially knowing that you might get a short, mediocre show. I would still pay to see a show of his, but if i got a bad show at first, I’m not sure if i would go again, depends on how his shows leading up to it go.
Lastly, I’m taking a liking to a lot of songs in this live show, a few of them i haven’t heard before, and i still haven’t listened to the whole thing yet. but there are a few songs that really stand out; Beautiful Sorta, Magnolia Mountain(one of my favorites), Sylvia Plath, Goodnight Rose, Rescue Blues, and Cold Roses.
Thanks again guys.
-Trevor