Santa Fe Setlist

1 Happy Woman Blues [before which Lu mentions that Jimmie Dale Gilmore once recorded a version of this: ??]
2 Well Well Well
3 Concrete and Barbed Wire
4 People Talkin’ [thank God Lu doesn’t notice the half dozen or so people from the second row who walk out just prior to this, but potential trouble ensues when someone shouts out just before the song starts, “it’s too loud”–Lu orders Kevin to turn the sound down and says she can’t always tell about these things. The sound seems fine to me]
5 Metal Firecracker [false start because Eric isn’t ready, Butch hangs fire, Eric’s sound is troubled throughout]
6 Tears of Joy
7 Side of the Road [with Nick, in full dress suit, on stage throughout fiddling with the plug-ins; Eric joins him on stage to try to solve the problem]
8 Little Angel, Little Brother [with Eric’s guitar up and down throughout]
9 Blue
10 I Lost It [preceded by a lot of talk of West Texas influences on this song, and a note that Terry Allen is in the audience]
11 Drunken Angel
12 Real Love
13 Essence
14 Honeybee [Lu smiles her way through some flubbed lyrics]
15 Joy
______________________________________________________________________
16 Motherless Children
17 REal Live Bleeding Fingers & Broken Guitar Strings
18 It’s a Long Way to the Top

This was a co-bill with the Flatlanders, and Ryan Bingham in front of them. The Flatlanders were great, but there was the unusual phenomenom of the act in front of Lu doing two encore songs (Susan Tedeschi in Philly once is the only comparable time I can remember), Gilmore’s great “Dallas” and the Van Zandt cover “White Freightliner,” the later with Bingham called out on stage to assist. That is to say, the Flatlanders left the stage at 8:40, and I had already been told the curfew was 10:30. That is to say, do the math and remember some past Lu shows, and get a little nervous. The crew did a great job turning things around, and all seemed good to go at the top of the hour. But about two minutes later, a trio of DJ/promoter/host figures emerged and started a litany of upcoming show announcements, so and so left her driver license at the box office announcements, and general plug-ourselves announcements, to the point that some 5 or 6 minutes into this, tour manager Eric (bless his heart) emerged from the wings and tapped the main guy on the shoulder, as if to say let’s get the show on the road. It was fully 9:10 by the time Lu walked on. To complicate matters, and on a personal note, this was the moment (Lu walk on) when a guy who had apparently been in my reserved seat during the Flatlanders took the opportunity to approach me and demand it back, getting in my face with his boozy breath (notwithstanding the venue’s policy of alcohol-freeness, since it was an ampitheatre inside a Native American high school) and demanding I produce the ticket stub, assuring me that everybody around “thought it cool” that he sat there during the opener. I fended him off but was distracted, needless to say, for several songs. Bottom line, Lu could have gone off feed around song four or five, but she gamely kept it together and smiled through most of the technical difficulties and the absurd shout-out about the alleged loudness. I’m happy to say the last ACDC cover strain ended closer to 10:35 than 10:30, and that security gave the business to my nemesis, who took it upon himself to hop onstage and take a setlist seconds after the lights came up–after having commandeered a seat BETTER than my fifth row aisle one for the show’s duration. Whatever makes you feel like a big man. Strange crowd. Some people probably purchased on the strength of the Flatlanders, who were originally announced apart from Lu at an indoor venue in another part of Santa Fe; Lu came on board later, same date, venue then changed. But quite a few standers during the encore made it clear that a core crowd appreciated her efforts.

Merch sales seemed slower. No “instrumental stylings” of Buick 6 per se. Still, a pretty good night on the Lu junket.