Live Review: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, North Charleston Performing Arts Center, March 11, 2009

I don't go to many shows at venues that hold more than 500 people. So I already felt out of place at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center the night Ryan Adams and the Cardinals were set to play. The lobby at the 1000+ seat venue was overloaded with trampy sorority girls, bearded folkies, and more than four pregnant women in Ugg boots (?); all were sipping wine and mixed drinks that they paid WAY too much for. (Two Guinness for me and my friend ran a total of $15--you do the math.)

Like everyone else, we heard a rumor that the night before Mr. Adams wed his one-time teenage pop star fiance', Mandy Moore, but I didn't believe it until the woman beside me pulled up the story on MTV.com on her Blackberry. And I don't believe anything until MTV.com confirms it to be true. Taking the stage at 8:45 to shouts of "Congratulations!" and "Where's Mandy?" the band seemed relaxed and official sounding. The guitars were tuned and ringing, and the floor tom had enough bass to it to shake a ribcage loose from it's skin.

Adams stuck to his livelier, more focused albums for the set: Cold Roses, Easy Tiger, and Cardinology, with the occasional tune from Heartbreaker and the Love is Hell series. In one sense it was the most predictable set of songs one could imagine, but with an artist like Adams, sometimes predictability is exactly what you want. After a number of songs, though, Adams announced there were some problems with the in-ear monitors (apparently they were picking up a radio station) and took a short ten minute intermission before returning--only to discover that the problem had not gone away. But Adams promised to "persevere and make this awesome." I took him at his word, even when some of the rhythmic noodle-jams between him and guitarist Neal Casal went on way too long with no direction.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who seemed bored because Adams signaled out a woman about three rows back in a red dress who was less than enthusiastic about the band's show. "We've been rockin' so hard for you!" he pleaded. "And we're sorry we suck so bad." He then proceeded to serenade her with an impromptu song called, "We Suck." If it wasn't the highlight of the night, it was definitely a rare show of humor from an otherwise humorless, unstable artist.

The show crested after that; now we got more guitar noodling, and some safe songs. And I was just getting settled in when Adams announced that the next song was about "Satan and fucking." A thumping version of "Magick" was followed by the end of the show. "Thanks you guys for coming out," and the house lights went up.

I checked my watch: 10:20. Disbelief all around. Surely an encore? Nope. They're taking equipment down onstage. "That's it," my friend said. We headed for the car and listen to folks outside who were visibly seething at the lack of an encore. And I felt the same way; a piano went untouched onstage, almost no songs from Gold, and we got three Neal Casal songs. "I didn't pay to see a Neal Casal show," my friend said, and he dropped me off at home and decided to head to The Pour House to catch Lucero. He'd never seen them before and I tell him that, even if they play the worst show of their life, it's probably still better than the Ryan Adams show we saw.

The Setlist, as I heard it:
Beautiful Sorta
Born Into the Light
Cold Roses
Come Pick Me Up
Everybody Knows
Wonderwall
Neal Casal sings song #1
(brief intermission with house lights while in-ear monitors are fixed)
Fix It
Why Do They Leave?
Neal Casal sings song #2
Goodnight Rose
Shakedown On 9th St
We Suck (impromptu song)
Let It Ride
I See Monsters
Neal Casal sings song #3
Broadway
Mockingbird
Magick

Funniest, yet saddest, conversation overheard at the show:
"Dude, how about him playing Oasis? That was cool, right?"
"Yeah...are you sure that's an Oasis song? You sure it's not one his songs?"
(*note to reader, these two gentlemen were approximately my age, 28-32)
"I don't know man, it could be..."
"I'm pretty sure it is. It's on one of his albums."
"What...you think Oasis covered his song?"
"Yeah, probably. I mean he wrote that song 'Stars Go Blue'..."
"So you think he licensed his song to Oasis?"
"Yeah, definitely."
"That's awesome."

The local paper, Charleston City Paper, has a review that is a little less flattering in it's sentiment and also contains some incorrect information. Read it here.

And here's some shitty cell-phone pics of the stage:




Good luck with the writing career, Mr. Adams. I mean that sincerely.

But I'm NOT Dead...

Okay, so for the three of my friends who have been good enough to mark my blog in their RSS Readers I want to say, "Thank you." According to the Blogger Gods, my last update was September 22, 2008. Today is March 22, 2008. That's a long time to be absent. Do I have an excuse? Sort of...

Back in August of 2008 I started writing for a little website called Stereo Subversion. It turned into a full-time gig pretty quickly, so the blog quickly fell by the wayside. But the thing is, I missed my own little site/blog. I missed working on it late into the night and then not being able to tell a difference the next day. I missed checking my feed stats everyday and seeing where all the strange places people were hitting the site from. And most of all, dear reader, I missed YOU.

Part of my issue was that I never really found a niche to write about or a set time to update regularly. As such, most of my postings and updates were sporadic at best, disheveled at worst. But I'm working on that, as I turn my attention to what might make this blog a bit more interesting than a standard mp3 blog or music news blog. (I think we have plenty of those and don't need one more.) So thanks for coming back. I'll also plug my reviews at Stereo Subversion on the blog, too. Check out the site, it's a great one and deserves some loyal readers.

Here's my latest review (click on the image to read the review):

Twin Tigers 7" "Sexless Love" b/w "Envy"

Old Flame Records, 2009

In the next day or two I will post a review of the Ryan Adams and the Cardinals show at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center. In the meantime, thanks for reading. I'm glad you're still here. And I'm glad I'm not dead.

Saturday Night's Alright...For Being Alone

The weekend was spent in the comfort of my home, mostly due to the fact that I locked my keys in my car Friday morning at work. With no way to get in until Monday, I hunkered down and did what any late-twenty-something would do on a Saturday night in a bustling town: painted my guest room.

The soundtrack of our nights:

Ryan Adams--Rock n' Roll

...still just a genuine throwaway CD. I was really only in the mood to hear "So Alive" and "Note to Self: Don't Die."

Various Mix CD

...compiled by Fletch in 2003. Lots of emo, the irresistable kind; especially from a band called, Believe In Toledo. (Now defunct?)

Braid--Frame & Canvas

...is it wrong to call it emo? Doesn't feel like it. This album might crack my Top Ten. The first three songs are flawless.

Modest Mouse--We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

...completely overlooked in my opinion. It received above-mediocre reviews mostly, I believe, due to the fact that critics only focused on the fact that Johnny Marr was now a part of the band. Isaac Brock's songwriting on this one was the gem, though. Don't believe me? Listen to "Missed the Boat" and "Parting of the Sensory."

Silversun Pickups--Carnavas
...summed up best by Nick Frost as "the band that Smashing Pumpkins could have been, if the Pumpkins didn't suck."

The Thermals--The Body, The Blood, The Machine

...stayed on my player all last summer. Still a solid album and great freakin' songwriting (e.g., "I regret leaving my mind/I forgot I needed it to think/and maybe to keep me alive/can't believe I got so far with a head so empty")

Never made it to:

Constantines--S/T

...but I plan on rectifying that siutation today. In the meantime, looking forward to the new Constantines, Kensington Heights. (Those boys look like extras from The Lost Boys in that picture, don't they?) Here's an mp3 link courtesy of Sixeyes.

Link for today:

Test your music IQ. 30 questions, and it's a lot of fun. Although what's scary is how accurate the descriptions of the your music personality are. I'm a Mix Tape DJ--what the hell are you?