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Just got back from the show at the Minnesota Zoo. It was in a beautiful amphitheatre on the Zoo grounds. The weather was perfect and I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Stoger & Paul from Los Angeles before the show. I hope that they post their thoughts because they go into the details real well. I can only say that for myself this was one of the best Lucinda Williams shows I’ve ever seen. Lucinda was at the top of her game from the get-go, and so was the band. It was an intense show that drove the crowd into ecstasy. Inside Job was right when he said something like, “Don’t worry it will get better.” I can’t believe they were this good only three shows into the tour. This bodes well for the future. I did not make a setlist at the show, but will post what I remember. The order won’t be perfect but close. Hopefully Paul or Stoger kept a setlist.
1. Rescue
2. Ventura
3. Circles & X’s
4. I Lost It
5. Real Love
6. Right In Time
7. Tears Of Joy
8. Out Of Touch
9. Little Rock Star
10. Essence
11. Real Live Bleeding Fingers & Broken Guitar Strings
12. Come On
13. Honey Bee
14. Joy
Encore:
15. Heaven Blues
16. Unsuffer Me
17. It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock & RollThanks, Tim, for a great description of the show. I had the same 17 songs for my setlist–perhaps, a slightly different order. Glad to meet you at the venue–it’s good to put a face on the names. The amphitheater was all reserved-seat bleachers, plus a restricted quantity of standing-room on the sides. About halfway through the show, a semi-official dance area emerged in the pit area to the stage-right…about 40-50 folks dancing for the remainder of the evening.
Thanks for checking in, guys. Sounds like “zero to 60” in 3 shows – not bad!
ps: “zero” may be a little harsh; let’s say “30 to 60”
🙂
I must concur that it was a fabulous show last night. The chemistry between Lu and the band seemed just a tad tentative until Right On Time. That really jumpstarted the energy and the rest of the show was amazing. Good chatter between songs. I was especially touched by the story of Lu spending Christmas Day alone in a Minneapolis hotel room while recording Essence here. That is what I love about her – the intensely personal feel of each song. When asked to describe her I call her the “female Neil Young” which I hope she takes as the compliment it is meant to be.
Buick 6 was a real treat. I don’t want to ruin any surprises, but their final two songs were a real pleasure and a rare treat.
Glad some of you out-of-towners could come and see the great venue we have at the MN Zoo. Perfect size for a show like this…
Thx for the updates boys. Glad you had a good time.
Holy Crap- I registered just now so I can post this- I don’t really do forums too much. I just saw them last night at the Minnesota Zoo. I’m a player and I can be hard to please, but Buick 6 (and their front woman- what’s her name 🙂 laid me low- it was pure heaven from start to finish with that show. I couldn’t believe that it could get better after their opening, but it did :-). One of the best bands I’ve seen, of course the material probably had a little to do with it 🙂
Thanks for the setlist and reviews. It’s interesting that the first few songs were completely different from the night before, but then the rest was nearly identical. What did Circles and X’s sound like?
@ParkerCA wrote:
I’m also curious about the new songs. Are they good?
I thought they were all quite good, and I’m not usually very open minded about new material 🙂
VERY excited about the new “album”. Liked all of the new songs (and it usually takes me a while to accept the new). Nice mixture of slow and rockers. And just enough twang….
@badjuggler wrote:
VERY excited about the new “album”. Liked all of the new songs (and it usually takes me a while to accept the new). Nice mixture of slow and rockers. And just enough twang….
Couldn’t agree more- so often the acts that I fall in love with seem to run out of really good ideas after a while, but to hear her new songs live and have such a good impression after the first listen is really promising.
I’m still recovering from last night. It was magical for me. The intensity seemed to keep building throughtout the set. Like Paul said, many people came out of the stands and went down front to dance. One sight that was unforgettable was during “Unsuffer Me” ( a song with a slower beat), they formed a chorus line with their arms around each other’s shoulders, and swayed to the beat for the whole song. “Circles & X’s” was very much country sounding. “Real Love” a straight out rocker. “Tears Of Joy” has been changed into more of a blues, as has been noted here before. “Heaven Blues” was pretty much Delta blues with Lu playing acoustic; Doug bottle neck slide, and Butch sitting in front of his drums on a home made contraption. “Little Rock Star” is an interesting song lyrically and musically. Lucinda played acoustic and the band came in and picked up the tempo off and on.
As far as the food incident goes; I didn’t see it get thrown, but a roadie ran out and kicked it off the front of the stage. Lucinda mentioned after the song, something about some people not being able to handle their alcohol. And then said, “You really haven’t made it in Rock, until someone throws a piece of food at you”. At the end of “Unsuffer Me” a woman stepped up on the stage and kissed Lucinda on the cheek.
Again, I thought the band was firing on all cylinders; but Doug Pettibone is just so good that he’s almost in another world now.Thanks first to Tim and Paul for your postings here; there’s not much for me to add, maybe a few finer points. Tim captures “Circles & X’s” well; Lucinda had multiple comments before it (“this will be on the new album–I still call them ‘albums'”; “I wrote the refrain for this one many years ago and just finished the rest”); during it (“I knew I was going to mess this one up”); and after it (“This will sound better on the record”; “I looked out at y’all and you were like ‘This is country'”). But it was beautiful nonetheless, can’t imagine the glitches were anything more than minor.
Yeah, I think there were some reversals from Tim’s setlist, Tears of Joy at 5 and Real Love at 7 rather than the opposite, Essence before Little Rock Star rather than after I think. But you got ’em all.
I too was touched by Lu’s intro to “Essence,” not only Christmas but much of the whole of winter holed up in the Twin Cities making the record.
Before “Ventura” she said “we’re not used to playing before the sun goes down.”
The finale, the AC-DC cover, came without intro or speculation about whether it will make the album last night, but I can’t imagine it will not make the cut. What a closer, live and studio-wise.
The food item in question would seem to be a pretzel, and I thought Lu was going to let it get to her more than she did: more humorous to everyone than negative, in the long run. Now when some chick tossed a bra Doug Pettibone’s way at Beaumont of Kansas City a few summers back, THAT got her happy.
Coming in on the local bus line, I met a couple (he from England, she from Austin TX) who had been in some sort of ticket agency a few hours before looking for Twins tickets–then discovered Lu availability and instantly forgot all about our national pastime. After all, as I told them, there are 161 more such games to attend. They turned out to be huge fans of Devon Sproule too (if I spell that right), the Virginian who opened for Lu X 2 at Indigo2 of London last November. They said they would join the forum and post: hope so, friends, and hope you found a taxi out last night also.
OK, OK, I won’t give away the Buick6 closer either, except to say Doug prefaced it with “this one has poetry in it” after saying earlier in the set “we don’t have any words yet.” Think major tune by a person for whom Lucinda once opened in recent memory. Oh, Doug got off some other good comments, acknowledging the “lions and tigers” on the grounds at one point; he played pedal steel on a song they hadn’t done in Iowa City. According to the blurb in the Twin Cities weekly Vitamin, last night’s opener was “a Delta blues trio from London.”
Sorry we didn’t get to chat more, Tim, but down the road. Thanks Paul for the lift in your rental car back to the transit center. . . .
Thanks for the reviews, setlists, info, etc. everyone. I’m really looking forward to the Atlanta show. If anyone here is there, I’ll be in line early at the gate (even though it didn’t pay off that well last time at the Garden as sponsor volunteers & top-level Garden members / donors got in early), so come by and say “hey” – I’m the big guy w/ gray hair & glasses…
Tom
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