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A great show tonight at the Wiltern Theatre. Nice energetic crowd, Lucinda in perfect voice, and the band was stunning. I did not write a setlist at the show, but this is very close, if not the perfect order.
1. I Just Wanted To See You So Bad
2. Happy Woman Blues
3. Tears Of Joy
4. Well Well Well
5. I Lost It
6. Can’t Let Go
7. Metal Firecracker
8. Real Love
9. Little Rock Star
10. Essence
11. Come On
12. Changed The Locks
13. Real Live Bleeding Fingers & Broken Guitar Strings
14. Unsuffer Me
15. Honey Bee
16. Righteously
Encore:
17. Angel
18. For What It’s Worth
19. It’s A Long Way To the TopMatthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs came out to do backing vocals on Real Love & Little Rock Star
Great show tonight. A fitting finale to the tour. It was a harder rocking show than the Ventura show was. No West, no Ventura, but some surprises instead. I saw Paul in front of the stage rocking out. I think the songs from Little Honey ended up sounding better performed live than they did on record.
gia ciambotti came out for it’s a long way to the top…….
paul and cindy were as close as you can be; cindy was given one of butch’s shredded drum sticks, that boy is amazing. loved when chet & butch had a nice rhythm devils thang goin’/both on drums (butch’s drums were ? one thing looked liked an inverted metal duct of some sort with a drum head on it)the band was rockin’ hard, and doug was amazing as always. chet, dave and butch, are equally amazing and i’ve loved watching their evolution.
lucinda’s voice just keeps getting better and better.
she was all smiles, all night (she was really nervous the first couple of songs, but the crowd showed her the love and she gave it back) i was impressed how packed the wiltern was.when the band came back on stage after angel, they were all bowing and applauding lucinda, that was really cool to see the love flowin’!
edited to fix my brain stammer/my neighbor bruce had stopped by, guess i had one of those geezer moments that are getting more frequent these days! ha
thanks for a great tour lu & buick 6, see ya in 09!Thanks for the setlist and reviews. Metal Firecracker, nice…I don’t think I’ve seen that one on a setlist in a while.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Lucinda Williams lets her songs tell the stories
Acclaimed singer-songwriter serves strong set at the Wiltern on Friday
By PETER LARSENThe last time Lucinda Williams came through town it was to showcase five of her acclaimed albums over five nights, telling stories of their inspiration, the cast of musician pals who showed up to help her, and basically talking about anything else that came to mind from one night to the next.
Those shows at the El Rey Theatre a little over a year ago felt so laidback and casual it was almost as if our adored singer-songwriter friend had stopped by our living room to play a few songs, tell a few tales.
So as her show at the Wiltern on Friday got started – this, the last stop on a two-month tour in support of her new “Little Honey” CD – it felt as first as if she wasn’t giving us everything we expected.
Wait a sec, you mean you’re not gonna talk about the guy who inspired your “Real Love?” Or the other one who’s about to mess it up in “Little Rock Star?”
But as the power of the songs starts to set in, you realize that in Williams’ lyrics and music you’ve got all the stories you need, and hopefully the imagination and the heart to fill in the rest.
And for 19 songs drawn from throughout her career and her influences, Williams delivered yet another strong show – so what if it was a little more of a formal concert than the last ones, you can’t go wrong with music this rewarding.
Opening with “I Just Wanted To See You So Bad,” Williams and her always sharp backing band– now going by the name Buick Six – gave a nod to the 1988 self-titled album that set her on her way to becoming the queen of Americana roots rock.
After “Happy Woman Blues,” which stepped even further back into her catalog, to when she started out as a more traditional folk-blues artist, Williams dipped into the new CD for “Tears Of Joy,” the first of six new tunes she played.
A mini-set of songs from breakout album “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road” included the always moving “Metal Firecracker,” with guitarist Doug Pettibone’s lyrical guitar lines bookending Williams’ world-weary vocals.
Coming back to the “Little Honey” material, power-pop hero Matthew Sweet and former Bangles’ singer Susanna Hoffs came out to add backing vocals to “Real Love” and “Little Rock Star.” (The pair, who played that role on the album, too, also joined Williams’ band, Buick 6, which opened the concert with an instrumental set, to cover Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.”)
Both songs were standouts, “Real Love” rocking hard, “Little Rock Star” summoning up that sad, wistful quality of so much of Williams’ music, and afterwards, she seemed pleased with the performances.
“You lifted me up,” Williams said as Sweet and Hoffs hugged her and walked off stage. “You lifted things up a whole ‘nother lever here.”
The rest of the night flowed strongly, one song to the next. “Essence” delivered its tale of longing and desire with a sexy, almost ominous vibe. “Come On” took those same feelings and flipped them around to tell the guy she’d wanted so much in the earlier song to more or less get lost. “Changed The Locks” took the storyline even further – no way he’s finding her now.
Williams introduced “Honey Bee,” a stomping sex-infused new one, as her current favorite to play, and after the speak-singing of “Righteously,” the main set ended, her adoring fans cheering wildly as she left the stage.
The encore offered a trio of covers, starting with Jimi Hendrix’s “Angel,” in tribute to the recent death of Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell.
Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” was part of the set throughout the fall as the presidential election unfolded, Williams said. “We’re still playing this song as a celebration and to remind everyone that the fight is just beginning,” she said.
And then – after saying she wanted to dedicate her final tune to President-elect Barack Obama – Williams ended the night with a cover of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top.”
That’s a sentiment that certainly fits the times and our new president, but to see and hear Williams reaching new peaks after being at it this long, sums up her own outstanding career just as well.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lucinda-williams-little-2237934-honey-wiltern
Hi Lefty, I just call it like I see it. I have no agenda or dogma to spout out here. That’s the way it will always be with me. Hopefully that Rochester show will be rescheduled for all of you out there in NY state. Keep the faith.
don’t mean to blow more sunshine up anyone’s behind, but here’s the L.A. Times review.
it’s only rock and roll……..L.A. Times review
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/11/live-review-luc.html
How good was Lucinda Williams’ performance Friday night at the Wiltern?
Crazy good. And sane good, sexy good, playful good, anguished good, angry good, cathartic good, brawny good, rockin’ good, bluesy good — head, heart and soul good.
Above all, the Louisiana-born singer-songwriter revels in the music of the soul, and judging from the remarkably rich litany of songs she’s written over the last three decades, she’s got one of the saddest-sweetest ones ever passed out.
The delightful thing about her new album, “Little Honey,” is the way she’s allowed the sun to come beaming through the dark spaces of the human experience.
No doubt that has something to do with her relationship with album co-producer and fiancé Tom Overby, whom she seemed to celebrate in several of the new songs in Friday’s set, including “Real Love,” “Tears of Joy” and “Honey Bee.”
One of the hallmarks of Williams’ talent is the multi-dimensionality of those songs. “Real Love” could indeed be viewed as an ode to a long-sought-after soul mate:
I found the love I’ve been looking for
It’s a real love, it’s a real love
Standing up behind an electric guitar
It’s a real love, it’s a real love.
It can also be read as the confession of a woman who, having established a profound connection with another human spirit, has fully embraced herself and her musical calling.
She is assisted mightily in that calling on the album and at Friday’s performance by her backing band, Buick 6, a quartet that recently put out an album of instrumentals and offered up its own invigorating 35-minute opening set. Guitarists Doug Pettibone and Chet Lyster provide Williams the kind of double-barreled attack Keith Richards and Ron Wood give the Stones, a rock-country-blues muscle she exploited in the resigned-to-fate two-step “Well Well Well” and the earthily sensual rocker “Honey Bee.”
After last year’s tour, when she played five studio albums in their entirety, Williams may have felt liberated to focus on the freewheeling newer stuff. But she did cherry-pick through her catalog — performing songs including “Can’t Let Go,” “I Lost It” and “Joy” from her 1998 breakthrough “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” album, the title track from 2001’s minimalist workout “Essence” and the bawdy “Come On” from last year’s “West.”
“Come On” is built on a stinging play on words directed at an ex, but Williams, her voice ever fuller, darker and grittier as the years go by, used it to chart a path out of anger and into emotional release. The band supplied the controlled burn of Crazy Horse at its most urgent, emphasizing focused power, not bombast.
She took Neil Young-like rock-infused blues to a soul-deep place that seemed to let loose her inner Etta James. It’s long been debated whether a white man can truly sing the blues, but Williams left no doubt that this white woman feels the blues down to her marrow.
Having moved back to L.A. after years in Nashville, Williams tapped a couple of Southland music scene veterans, Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, for harmonies on “Little Honey” that they recreated at the Wiltern, adding to the cozy, hometown feel of the 100-minute show.
She ended with “It’s a Long Way to the Top,” the song that also closes “Little Honey” on a note of both celebration and warning to anyone who aspires to scale a peak. She dedicated it to President-elect Barack Obama with the authority of one who’s been to the top and bottom of the mountain, and who’s entirely cognizant of what she’s gained every step of the way.
–Randy Lewis
Photo: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
@stellablueee wrote:
don’t mean to blow more sunshine up anyone’s behind, but here’s the L.A. Times review.
it’s only rock and roll……..L.A. Times review
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2008/11/live-review-luc.html
Hmmm. Obviously, the LA Times reviewer is a rabid cheerleader who is not being authentic… 🙄
😉 😆Tom
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