Essence

Hello, all. I haven’t been on this forum since the 2007 St. Louis show, but thought I’d tell everyone a bit about last night’s show in Iowa City. I guess I should have known from it being billed “An Evening with Lucinda Williams” that it was going to be a more intimate setting. But I was still surprised when she took the stage with an acoustic guitar and no band. The first thing I said when she did her first song (can’t believe I can’t remember what it was, but it was off of Car Wheels) was “her voice sounds great!” I don’t know if it was not having a band around her, or being early in her tour, but her voice sounded the best I’ve heard it, very rich and clear. At one point, she said, “This rooms sound beautiful!” and someone said “YOU sound beautiful!”

The early part of the show (she played for about 2 hours straight, I’d say) was very mellow, with little talking to the audience. It mixed stuff from Car Wheels, and much earlier stuff. I heard “Pineola” and “Sweet Old World” in there, which caught me by surprise — LOVED IT! I remember thinking, “she’s playing a lot of suicide/death songs.” She didn’t play, in my recollection, anything off of West or World w/o Tears (I was fine with that, because I was really enjoying hearing the songs I love the most). Later on, she did some stuff off Essence and the new one (“Buttercup” and “Blessed” and “I Don’t Know How You’re Livin'”). When she played “I Don’t Know How You’re Livin’….” she said she wrote it for her brother, the same one she wrote “Are you all right?” about. And then she said “that little rascal doesn’t even know he’s famous.” She also played “Honey Bee” toward the end of the show.

In the second half of the show, she started to get a little frazzled. She said she felt really tense or something like that — but if she had never said anything, I never would have picked up on it! She forgot some chords, said the set list “had gone to hell” and said she was worried everyone would write a really critical review now. She had to start several songs over. But! Here’s the thing…I did not mind any of this at all. It only endeared me more to her.It’s not like she ever seemed off, drunk or out of control or something. It was never as if those moments (needing to start over, telling us she forgot a song she plays all the time) really ever took away from the show’s overall intensity or beauty. To me, they just made the show seem more “coffeehouse-esque” and I really appreciated the more natural feel to everything.There was some idiot behind me that said “I paid a lot of money for these tickets, come on” and I just wanted to say, “give her a break! She’s up there all by herself with just an acoustic guitar. That takes a lot of guts. If you want to go to a stadium concert, then go!” So, I’m more than willing to excuse her for all the little pauses toward the end of the show. i’d say it never took her more than a minute or so to get back into a song.

Bringing Bo Ramsey on was a good thing because he helped take some of the spotlight off her (I’m not entirely sure he was planned, or at least not for as many songs as he ended up doing). Once he got on stage, she seemed to find her focus again and the ending songs were really charged and quite different from earlier in the show. I really think they should be sure to give her some support out there a bit earlier on in future shows, even if it’s just one other guitarist. She got a standing O and did 3 songs for the encore. She ended with “Joy”. In the encore, she got political, talking about Egypt and MSNBC and Woodie Guthrie and protesting in Wisconsin. This was her most talkative of the night.

All in all, I had a great time at this concert and I’d love to see her again. The one thing that was really different from when I saw her in STL was that the crowd in Iowa City was largely of the “Boomer” generation — there were hardly any younger people there, which surprised me a bit. Not that there’s anything wrong with one crowd or the other….

Oh — the opening act, Dylan LeBlanc, was really quite good. He has an amazing voice — I’m tempted to download his CD — and did all acoustic stuff. It might have been nice had he thrown in a more upbeat tune now and then, but he seemed to be going for a kind of vibe and I was fine with that. At times, his voice reminded me a bit of Jeff Buckley.

Sorry I don’t have a good set list to offer any one, but I hope you at least enjoy reading more in detail about the show last night. All in all, I’d say the Iowa City show featured a pared-down Lucinda with a large focus on earlier work, and far less attention on her new CD. Someone actually reminded her from the audience, “What’s your new CD called?” The songs I heard off “Blessed,” I really liked. I thought the lyrics seemed stronger than “West.”

Great show, glad I went, have fun all y’all who are seeing her next in Minnesota!!

To respond to underwhelmed…I wasn’t at the show, so it’s not for me to judge, but I just can’t believe the show was as bad as you say.

First of all, she read out of a book at the St. Louis concert too. It’s not like she needed it for the whole show, but mostly for older songs. I didn’t mind it, because she put so much of herself into the performance. SO WHAT if she had to look at the book?! She has a large repertoire of songs. At least at the show I was at, the book thing wasn’t an issue because she also talked to the crowd a lot in between.

To my recollection, the song “Honey Bee” (I’ve only heard it once) is not about being jilted. It’s a cute “I am in love” song and talks about wanting to be “stung.” I don’t think that it’s just another typical break-up song. In fact, a lot of the newer stuff she tried out seemed to me to be about an evolution in her music toward something happier.

Wow, sorry to read this…this is the complete opposite of my experience! Years ago, I remember hearing that her shows are somewhat hit or miss, so I was pleasantly surprised at what a great performance she put on here in STL. As for social skills…I remember seeing the CMT video of her singing with Elvis Costello and how she barely made eye contact with the audience and kind of let Costello do all the talking. At the show here, she was totally engaged with the audience and told us from the beginning what a great audience is was and how good everything sounded, etc. She acknowledged a few people too, either signaling them out visually or answering back to people yelling things (in a nice way). I also think at least part of her excitement and endurance (not just coming out for another set but before the show even ended, telling us she was planning on it, as long as they could beat curfew) had to do with the way the crowd reacted to Charlie Louvin’s opening act. People were just really respectful of the band and patient waiting for Lu to come on. Was it like that last night?
Anyhow, sorry you had a bad experience. I hope it won’t ruin listening to her music elsewhere. 🙁