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June 29, 2008
Englert Theatre
Iowa City, IAFruits of My Labor
Are You Alright?
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
Tears of Joy
Those Three Days
Real Love
Out of Touch
Essence
Little Rock Star [live debut]
Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings
Come On
Honey Bee
Joyencore:
Knowing
Heaven Blues [live debut]
Unsuffer Me
It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll) [AC/DC cover]I hope I don’t leave out anything important…I’m not firing on all cylinders this morning, thanks to the three and a half hour drive back home after last night’s show. But it was definitely worth it. I headed out on the road yesterday afternoon thinking I’d built in plenty of extra time to get there; I’m glad I did, because thanks to a flood-related detour that took me all the way out to Cedar Rapids, I got into the theatre at about ten minutes to 8.
The Englert Theatre is a nice, small theatre in downtown Iowa City; I think the capacity listed above the doors was 500-something. I think small venues like this are the perfect setting to see Lucinda perform; even better, I scored a front-row seat on the right side thanks to another forum member’s tip, without which I probably wouldn’t have found out about this show at all. It was the perfect vantage point to watch the show.
Buick 6 was, well, kind of uninteresting to me. I like Lucinda’s band a lot and I think they do a great job of interpreting her songs, but I’m not much of a fan of instrumental music anyway, and some of the Buick 6 songs really dragged (particularly the slower ones). I appreciate how talented these guys are, but the few really exciting minutes couldn’t save their half-hour set for me. Oh well.
I’d read the not-so-glowing reviews of Lucinda’s Saturday night set and hoped that they’d worked out the first-night kinks (in fact, at one point during the show Lucinda called last night’s show the tour opener). I obviously can’t comment on Saturday’s show, but last night was a pretty good one. Lucinda came out a little after 9 and they kicked into Fruits of My Labor. This song took a long time to grow on me, but I love it now. Last night’s rendition was a little tentative, but it seems like it generally takes a couple of songs for Lucinda to hit her stride. Last night, Car Wheels was the song where everything really came together. Seeing her perform that live is an experience on par with watching Bob Dylan sing Like A Rolling Stone, and it’s still my single favorite Lucinda song and the one I think best showcases her songwriting.
The first “new song” of the night was Tears of Joy. I’d seen her sing it a couple of times in 2006, but in the meantime she’s really reworked it. It’s a lot more of a blues song now, complete with some nice guitar work from Doug. I think the song has matured quite a bit. I felt the same way about Real Love; I hadn’t seen it live but I’d heard a recording of it from 2005. It sounds a lot more robust than it did then, and I’m glad that she didn’t abandon it.
I came into last night really hoping I’d get to hear a new song that I knew nothing about, and when she introduced Little Rock Star and said that they’d never played it live before, I got my wish. It’s a really interesting song, and I’m not surprised that (according to Lucinda) it’s already considered the best song of the new album by those who’ve heard it. I wish I could remember more about it, but what struck me was that it’s probably the strongest song lyrically she’s done in a long time. Really get to hear.
Speaking of lyrics, it wasn’t long before she played two of her least lyrically compelling songs back-to-back. Okay, in fairness I’ll admit that Honey Bee is a very strong rocker live, and comparing it to Car Wheels or Pineola is like comparing apples to oranges. Heck, even Come On isn’t nearly as bad as I’d expect a song that begins “Dude, I’m so over you” to be, and the first few times I saw her perform it live, the power of it was impressive. It didn’t translate very well in the studio, I don’t think, and I’m not expecting Honey Bee to do so either. But live, Honey Bee is a crowd pleaser and deservedly so.
Too quickly, the main set was over and they came back out for the encore. I’d heard Knowing before, but last night’s performance left me cold. The musical arrangement was even sparser than it was when she performed it in ’06, and I felt like the song just didn’t take shape. Heaven Blues was another live debut, and interesting…most of all for the percussion instrument that Butch invented (plastic water bottles masking-taped together). But the closer was probably the biggest surprise of all. She introduced it by saying that it’s the only song on the new album she didn’t write, and that they’re still debating whether it should be included, but leaning toward yes. I never thought I’d hear Lucinda cover AC/DC, but it was really good. A great, high-energy way to end the show for sure.
Overall thoughts: this was my 7th Lucinda show, and it was by the far the hardest-rocking show of hers I’ve been to. She’s definitely moved away from her blues/folk/country roots (okay, that’s not news to anyone here), which can’t help but be disappointing for those of us who love what she did up to the Car Wheels album…but like any great artist, she’s always envolving, and I think she’s found a new groove. West was probably the most disappointing Lucinda album for me, but I think the new one will be better, if not her best ever. Judging her new work by her old is unfair to all involved, not least ourselves if it means that we overlook interesting and vital work she’s doing now. I’ll be first in line for the self-titled and Sweet Old World nights if she chooses to do another set of shows like she did last fall, but I’m equally excited to hear what she’ll do next.
Awesome report, Stu. I hereby nominate you for the Bill Pagel Award! 😉
Thanks for set list, color commentary, etc!
Well done, Stu: I too had rerouting issues into Iowa City, and I was under the impression that the Englert Theatre was an auditorium on the U of Iowa campus. Much funkier and grittier than that, as you say: how about those souvenir green ticket stubs? You don’t get that out of TicketBastard.
Your setlist was completely spot-on. I’ll add just a few comments. Yes, the show was referred to as the tour opener by Lu before song two, as she understandably wanted a tabula rasa after Milwaukee (which of course had fine moments of its own). The intro before “Are You Alright” was very extended, with mention of her brother Robert living somewhere in LA. Elaborate intros were spoken before “Tears of Joy”; the new sound man is James from Capetown, South Africa; one guitar tech (who got a kiss on the lips from Lu upon walk-on, surely a good omen) named Gil is formerly of Ya Lo Tengo; Doug’s guitar tech Wolfie is from Scotland. “Out of Touch” was introduced with a shout-out to homeboy Bo Ramsey. “Little Rock Star” was compared by Lu to “Drunken Angel,” and she also revealed that Matthew Sweet will do vocals on the studio version. But it’s not the live premiere of that song, though she said so: she did it at the Dylan tribute in LA this year, and I’ve heard it at least once before, maybe at El Rey last fall. It may be the live debut of a reworked version, true enough. Truly, “Heaven Blues” was a first, and beautiful (but “Doors of Heaven” will not be on the upcoming record). I agree “Knowing” was a bit slower than in past, started so slow in fact that LU said “that’s OK, we need to calm down anyway” as encore began. I think they are leaning toward putting the ACDC cover on the record, which would be the first studio record since Car Wheels with any covers, right?
A bit more Buick6 dope: insofar as the band had a frontman, it was Doug, though he said virtually nothing besides thank you except (1) “some of you might recognize this next song” and (2) “we’d like to thank Lucinda Williams for inviting us over from Scotland to open.” They are still finding a center, I think, though I liked most of the songs. Ironically, Lu’s thick lyric book was prominent on stage while the guys worked their way through the all-instrumental opener. Lots of instrument-changing, Doug on harmonica for last song, chair brought out for Butch to sit in front of drum kit for one song, previewing what he did later during LU’s encore. It’s been almost exactly 11 months since Chet made his band debut, also in the state of Iowa.
Final footnote on Saturday night in Milwaukee: James told me he had never mixed Lucinda before that night, had never even heard her songs if I understood him right. This is probably standard in the business, if a bit shocking. But the sound was great in Iowa, and no one was plugging in cables mere minutes before the walk-on. It’s getting better, and going to be fantastic in the days ahead.
“…James told me he had never mixed Lucinda before that night, had never even heard her songs if I understood him right. This is probably standard in the business, if a bit shocking.”
That is pretty surprising (to me).
Maybe we’ll hear more about this from others in the know here.Awesome report, Stu. I hereby nominate you for the Bill Pagel Award!
I can’t in good conscience accept that award until I start posting setlists minutes after shows end, and also detailing the instruments played by band members on each song. 😉 Seriously, though, mostly because I appreciate the wealth of setlist information available on Dylan, I do my best to post setlists of other artists’ shows I attend…I’d probably write them down for myself anyway. Writing reviews is fun, too…thanks for the encouragement. It’s been a while since I sat down and went into detail like this.
stoger, thanks for filling in details. You know, now that you mention it I remember hearing the title of Little Rock Star before last night, and I was thinking to myself that I didn’t think it had been leaked in any of the studio discussions…I guess in the back of my mind I remembered it from the Dylan tribute. Oh well, it was new to me. 🙂 Yes, the ticket stubs were nice, but even nicer was buying tickets through the iowatix.com website – being able to choose my seat from what was still available, rather than requesting “best available” and having to debate whether to take what pops up or try for something better was great.
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