ExileOnVainStreet

@stoger wrote:

Thanks, exile–especially for the gear rundown and the culinary metaphor at end. May have to join you for that initial (Barbican) return to the UK entree. . .

Stoger, I’m actually going to miss that one in my adopted home town due to a double booking with Neil & The Horse at the O2, however I’ll be popping up at a few of the others on an extended railroad trip oop north, as we say in these parts…

@LWjetta wrote:

@ParkerCA wrote:

Re: Song No.8 “Nothin'”[attachment=0:p5q05az7]Poet A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt.jpg[/attachment:p5q05az7]

“Nothing” features the vocals of Lucinda Williams. This song, which is about the troubles of life, is one of those goose bump-raising tunes. “Sorrow And Solitude, These are the precious things and the only words that are worth remembering,” Lucinda sings mournfully.

Let’s have a listen to this one just uploaded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EWD7-ZV6WM
Maybe Tom O could convince Lu to do this very haunting song on Fall Tour 2011.

lwj

Or perhaps the upcoming European tour!

Always loved this version and have just stumbled across this thread while trying to find out who’s playing the slide guitar on it, the sleevenotes don’t seem to say who it is.

Is it Doug or perhaps Colin Linden who’s co-credited as the track’s producer with Lucinda, anyone know?

Thanks

And they were a great pair of shows there as well, the sound was amazing.

NY&CH are probably the only artists I would forego a Lucinda show for and I have managed to get good tickets for some of her other UK shows so things ain’t so bad! 🙂

Blessed, thanks for the set lists, according to my handwritten notes (& memory unless I blacked out due to extreme overexcitement for 10 minutes!) Lu only played Passionate Kisses solo on the first night, Lake Charles & Motherless Children weren’t played at all, Doug joined her for Side of The Road, which was the second song of the night. Also only Bitter Memory was played and not Stowaway. Your second night setlist is spot on.

Wow what an incredible pair of shows, can’t decide which one was better, more than worth the 3 year wait, we were royally spoiled with virtually two completely different sets of songs. Boths shows were structured in a similar fashion starting with just Lucinda solo with Doug, then David then Butch joining as the sets progressed with the sets getting more & more rockier, the only difference being on the first night we got an additional solo Lucinda song with Blessed as the first encore. Also the second night’s set seem to get more rockier earlier on and for longer. Lucinda seemed to really enjoy both nights recounting numerous anecdotes and didn’t seem nervous at all, at previous London shows she has commented about how daunting it can be to play here, she also commented both nights on how good the sound of the room was, and it did sound great, I can speak from personal experience that this is not always the case there, so thanks to the sound guys whoever they were!

On the 2nd night I could see that Ray Davies was watching from the side of the stage and she later dedicated Essence to him as he had requested it. One other “celeb” spot in the audience was the great Joe Boyd, I’m sure there would have been others there.

Particular highlights for me were…
Born To Be Loved – especially loved David’s upright bass playing on this.
Get Right With God (both nights) – played with real fervour and great vocals from the whole band with Lu & David singing “Get Right With God” then Doug & Butch instantly responding with “Standing On The Rock” during the song’s finale.
Lake Charles – loved to hear this played solo, couldn’t have asked for a better start to the 2nd night!
Blue – Doug’s guitar work on this was simply beautiful.
Seeing Black – which I (very loudly!) shouted out for (and also someone a couple of rows behind me) when the band returned for the encores on the 2nd night.

Re the aborted Salt of the Earth – following the announcement from Lucinda that they were now going to play a cover of Stones song there was a debate with the band whether Lucinda should play the guitar or not, she didn’t, then the song was aborted after about a minute or so with Lucinda (off mic) saying to the band “do we know this song or not?” with some comments about there being an extra break or something followed by “this is really embarrassing” and then some comments were directed to the side of the stage asking if she “had to play the song” and would she “get in trouble if she didn’t” before eventually walking up to the microphone and saying “to be perfectly frank, it’s not one of their best songs anyway” which received a big round of applause & quite a few cheers.

Mostly though the audience were very quiet & reverential especially on the 1st night which was partly down to the venue, it did feel like being in some sort of modern church at times which I guess was not entirely inappropriate! Things felt a bit looser on the 2nd night, there were quite a lot of shouted out requests when they returned for the encores.

On the 2nd night Lucinda mentioned that the BBC had recorded the 1st night, she wasn’t sure if they were recording the 2nd (I think that was what she said). I think it may have been at this point that she made a very funny & astute quip about the BBC and their “recent problems”.

For guitar fans – Doug used just 3 guitars both nights, oscillating between black & blonde Strats for the quieter numbers then usually a black Les Paul for most of the louder ones, however he used one of the Strats on Unsuffer Me which made him sound almost Hendrix-like at times. He also used the black Strat on Get Right With God both nights.

And finally, I really enjoyed the new funkier numbers, perhaps the new album might be called Take It To The Bridge!

Your humble London correspondent.

You’re not alone Dr O’Boogie & Mr Koyote, I’ve been having similar thoughts as you both in the last few days. It’s been a very long 3 years for some of us since Lucinda’s last European shows. I’ve resisted any wallet-emptying temptations to go over to the USA for some shows, I really would loved to have seen the recent 4 night stint in NYC.

I’m (obviously!) going to both nights and really hoping that we’ll get to hear some of the great new(!!!) songs off Blessed along with the countless classics.

As to the fact that the shows aren’t yet sold out, I don’t know about Ireland but I really think Lucinda is underrated over here in the UK and I just don’t understand why. To me her songwriting at times is at least the equal of all the great “Americana” songwriters of the last 90 years and her live performances are even better.

I seem to have been playing a lot of live recordings of Lucinda in the last few weeks…

Have now added the full setlist from the first SB Empire show in London 2006. (It was on the back of one of my business cards, I knew I had it somewhere).

EoVS

Tom

I was at that Cambridge show but I remember not bothering to write down a setlist as I’d lazily assumed someone else from here would. I seem to remember the set being about an hour long and Lucinda opening with but aborting (due to excessive camera flash) a solo version of Motherless Children which she ended up coming back and playing as the only encore. I’m also pretty sure that Unsuffer Me was played as I remember a song being played which hadn’t been played at the 4 other shows which I’d attended on that tour.

However I do have a recording of the BBC broadcast, it’s only 28 minutes long and the songs on it, in order are…

Big Red Sun Blues
Drunken Angel
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Real Live Fingers (etc)
Honey Bee
Get Right With God
Motherless Children

I also have 3 complete setlists from the 2006 European Tour which I will try and get around to posting directly on setlist.fm

Thanks for your hard work in compiling all this stuff.

EoVS

TO

I appreciate that you’ve probably got a lot on your business plate at the moment but any further news on the European shows for 2011 yet?

Some of us over here are chomping at the bit for some live Lucinda action (and also regretting not getting on a plane for some of the East Coast shows).

Thanks as always…

EoVS