Atlanta Botanical Gardens July 25, 2008

We were really excited to see Lucinda once again in Atlanta at the beautiful Atanta Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately Lu was not as excited.
Her whining and swearing really turned off the audience. It was just plain rude they way she conducted herself on the stage. It was hot and muggy, but I think she has endured those kind of conditions before. Besides, we were also hot and muggy and we paid good money!
It was a dreadful start of the show due to her behavior and contrary to her proclamation of “We Reedemed Ourselves!”, I felt she never had a chance. Grow up and be a professional or don’t bother charging admission.

To those that complained about LW’s attitude and language in this thread (and in others.)

Ask yourself this – Would you rather just go and see someone churn out the same old crap, whatever their feelings at the time?

If the answer is yes, go and see the Eagles on their next reunion tour, that sounds more like your kind of thing – nice and safe – you know what you’re going to get – everything the same as on the album and nothing your grandmother wouldn’t like.

Lucinda is all about spontaneity and laying her feelings out on a plate – that is in her records and that is in her live shows – if she wasn’t like that, she wouldn’t be Lucinda.

I for one would have LOVED to have been at that show – any show. In 10, 20 years time, you will be saying to your friends/descendants that YOU WERE THERE – well the fact is, that if you felt like that, you WEREN’T there, you were up your own A-bomb instead!

Have you ever listened to her albums? Have you ever empathized with the sheer weight of feeling in her songs? Are you actually a fan at all?

To those of you that were expecting Lucinda-lite, I have only one thing to say – F-bomb you!

It was swelter-weather in ATL; naked would not have been cool enough. Yes, Lu was p.o.’ed a little to begin with, but did groove as the night progressed. She emotes in her music b/c she emotes in her daily life. Give her a break. Talented, thought-provoking gifted folks are finer-tuned and, -moody b/c of that. I’ve seen her 3 times in Nashville-2004, Northampton, MA-2007, and now ATL. All great shows…none of the others did she get irritated. Everybody gets that way sometime. Absolutely identify with her terrific, consitently extraordinarily empathetic lyrics and emotive music style. Pettibone’s great at interpreting her stuff!

Tony,

I hear what you are saying man. Several people on this site like to put down other fans opinions, comments and favorites. It’s their view and no deviation from it – DAMMIT (In their minds – LOL) My favorite album is, and will always be “Lucinda Williams”, and my favorite song on it “Like a Rose”. If that makes me a Lucinda-Lite so be it. Phil will F-Bomb me.

That being said, I loved her warm-up performance at Riverbend in Cincinnati, and the most memorable moments from it will be the Doug and Chet jam session during Joy, and the first time (for me) hearing the rocker “Honey Bee”. So I like the new stuff, cherish the old stuff, and can’t wait for the new album, and the new tour. And if you can’t handle that, keep it to yourself.

Nice comment Tony. Some people will back Lucinda’s behavior no matter what she does or says. The thing that bothers me about this latest episode is that she humiliated & denigrated her crew who work very hard for her night after night! She has lost alot of good people (crew & musicians) over the years because of that kind of behavior. She may be a real person, but it’s time that she balances it with some self-control & discipline. Maybe Flappy just got tired of it.

Tony,

I’m jealous you made it to all the shows. And BTW if the Eagles come anywhere near Cincinnati, I’ll be getting tickets. I’ve got most of their albums, mostly in vinyl.

Sorry to have to call you out, but sometimes you just can’t sit on the sidelines and watch complete bullshit being slung around. So why don’t we mix in some actual facts here also. First of all, I don’t know what you saw or what you thought you saw but Lucinda did not denigrate her crew, and no one in her crew felt in any way denigrated. Period.
I can speak directly about only for the last four years, but even beyond that I know of NOT ONE case where anyone ever left Lucinda because of the way she treated them. If you asked them, her crew would tell you what they tell me- working for Lucinda is the best gig there is, and she goes out of her way to make it that way. She views it as her family. We have a core group of people that she works with hasn’t really changed in several years. But like everyone else they have to keep working and Lucinda can’t tour twelve months out of the year, so they take other gigs, but usually only after finding out what Lucinda is going to do first. That is why it is not always the exact same crew with Lucinda. We believe in having the very best people behind the scenes and we always do. Just to lay it out there for the record, Flappy left because of personal reasons, Mark Humphreys had actually left Neil Young to be with Lucinda, but Neil made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse for his current tour. Nick Close, Doug’s previous guitar tech, was going to be with us, but REM extended their tour so he was obligated to them. We love and respect all of those people and they remain on the above mentioned shortlist of people we consider to be the very best and part of the family. It is very possible that all of them will be back at some point. But I need to also mention that our current crew have come in and filled big shoes and stepped in to new roles, and are doing doing a fantastic job and have made the transition seamless. At different times on different tours in the future you will probably see any combination of these people because they are the A-list and they love working with Lucinda.
Okay -enough about that. No -one more thing, why is anyone surprised that Doug Pettibone is still with her? Give him a little credit and please explain that to me. Doug loves playing with Lucinda -do you think in 8 years he has never had another offer? And he’s still here-what more needs to be said.

Now in regards to the Atlanta show. It was a complete and disgusting amateur hour. 1) It was a relatively new stage and our crew had to spend part of the day actually having to help the Botanical crew assemble it in 95 degree heat, because they apparently didn’t have it down yet. 2)The lighting system was brand new- it was the first show they were used- they were actually going to put more twirling lights on the stage but our crew put their foot down and wouldn’t let them put any more onstage. The overhead lights could not have been a more ridiculous setup- the lights were only about five feet above Lucinda’s head and four lights were pointing directly into her face. She had to turn around and go back towards Butch during the second song and cover her eyes because she was literally blinded. When she asked very nicely during the first song about the lights, nothing happened until the fourth song when they started to flash on and off like it was American Bandstand or something. It was at this point that Lucinda lost it, and I couldn’t blame her as it was one of the stupidest things i have ever seen. We were actually trying to deal with right from the first song but the light person apparently didn’t understand english until the worst case scenario happened. Lucinda later described it as having someone put a flashlight in your face -only this one burns at about 150 degrees-on top of an already hot day. Just completely fucking ridiculous. 3) Because our crew was busy helping put the stage together, soundcheck had to be pushed back, and then it rained, so then there was no soundcheck. Perfect. But shit happens, and you fight thru it, and thats what Lucinda AND our crew did. As she said very explicitly that evening, she wants every show to be the best and it is obviously not acceptable when the expected minimum professional conditions are not met and cause the show to be diminished.
As you saw that is very upsetting to her, because she knows it all reflects on her. But it is because she knows that, that she insisted on redoing one of the songs over that had been disrupted– and continued the show right up to curfew -to last the possible minute she could play. Did she redeem herself, as she said at the end of the show- definitely -and she also redeemed the amateur hour conditions of that venue, where we will never ever play again.