The Show: Ryan Adams

The show exceeded all of my expectations and my expectations were high.

Ryan Adams looked and sounded great. He really seems to have turned a corner and he was funnier and more relaxed that I've ever seen him. I've never been to one of his shows where he joked with the audience so much.

Chris Stills opened the show with a good set. I really enjoyed it especially considering that i'd never heard of him before. In the middle of his set a cat jumped up on stage and slowly walked around for a minute, Stills changed the words to the serious song he was in the middle of to include the cat.

Adams played a great set covering most of his career. I told someone that it was almost like he was touring behind a greatest hits album. It was a solo tour so all of the choices were on the more mellow side, his really rocking numbers didn't surface although he did play Dear Chicago in the style of Kiss's lick It Up.

Here is a rundown of the set list.
1. Sweet Carolina
2. Ashes & Fire
3. Damn Sam
4. Dirty Rain
5. Winding Wheel
6. Sylvia Plath
7. Mr. Bananas(Improv)
8. Invisible Riverside
9. When Will You Come Back Home
10. Everybody Knows
11. Firecracker
12. The End
13. Rescue Blues
14. Please Do Not Let Me Go
15. Why Do They Leave
16. New York, New York
17. Lucky Now
18. Crossed Out Name
19. Two
20. 16 Days
21. Avenues
ENCORE
22. Dear Chicago
23. La Cienega
24. I See Monsters
25. Goodbye Song
26. Come Pick Me Up

See what I mean? he reached all the way back to the Whiskeytown days. He actually made an off hand comment about being too drunk back then to remember the words to all of the Whiskeytown songs. His self deprecating humor continued through the entire show. It was a great night. I hope to catch him on the next tour, maybe he will be playing all rocking numbers.

A quick note on the venue. Le Trianon is a great old theater. It's elaborately ornamented, has two balconies and sounds great. It also has permanent seating. For this type of show it was great but some shows need standing room. Yuksek is playing there soon and it would be interesting to see how the crowd deals with the seating situation.

Bonus fact, Ryan was wearing vision street wear hightops.

Here are a few videos of the show from youtube. Keep in mind that Ryan has a crazy no photo, no recording policy that is strictly enforced(I ran into this when I saw him in Vermont) so these are mostly audio recordings.

Ryan Talking to the crowd and the first few notes of "The End".


The awesome kiss version of "Dear Chicago".


Most of "Come Pick Me Up."

One last story. The first thing I did at the show was visit the merch table. The woman working it looked at me and asked if I was from Oklahoma. I had almost work my OK shirt but knew I hadn't so I was a little taken aback but answered in the affirmative. her next statement was that the owners of the Cain's Ballroom were really shitty to outside merch vendors. It was then that I realized that I had on a sweat jacket with a small Cain's patch on the breast. We chatted for a few minutes, she was Scottish or Irish but her husband was from Edmond. I then bought a t-shirt.