Lafayette

@tonyg2756 wrote:

Thx for the link Tim. What version of Car Wheels is playing when you go to that site?

In the upper left hand corner is a player loaded with songs spanning her career. You can click manually through. When I opened the link, a song from upcoming record was playing.

I was looking at shirts at the New York show and mentioned to my Mellencamp friend I wanted to buy one and then looked at that $35 price and told her “never mind, I’ll wait.” This friend ended up surprising me with that same cheap material shirt as an early birthday gift!

@cyclist911 wrote:

I saw Lucinda last night at the Greek in Berkeley and she was awesome as usual. She was really in a good mood and seemed to have so much fun with the band. Especially when Andy York from Mellencamp’s band came out and played with her. She played 4 new songs from her upcoming album and they we all great. At first the Berkeley crowd was walking around and still getting their seats but after about 3 to 4 songs it was like they finally understood what a treat they were getting and they really got into her performance and she received a full-house applause by the end of the set. I prefer seeing her in smaller settings though the Greek is a great venue. I will be seeing her on her own on 4 Sept in Sacramento at the Crest and can’t wait!

AWESOME!!! I saw Andy side stage in Cincinnati singing along and watching Lu’s entire set. He was really getting into “Joy”. I even pointed him out to Stevarino. He’s probably my favorite musician in Mellencamp’s band these days. He really started to shine on “Trouble No More”, where Mellencamp covered “Lafayette”. Andy made that record with his guitar work.

Do you remember what songs he played with Lu?

I’m surprised to hear that the Greek Theater was not filled with Lu fans. I’m fairly new to this forum but I thought for sure since Lu is based in LA this would be HER crowd. I’ve been to 5 shows on this tour (opening for Mellencamp) and 3 out of those 5 shows had an above average audience in attendance when she hit the stage IMO.

As far as her opening for Mellencamp and it not being the right match, and, don’t get me wrong,I’m certainly not here to defend him as this is a LU forum, but I can say as a die hard fan, John’s first two shows on this leg he tried to craft a set list that I refer to as artsy. People were sitting in their seats until he broke out his “pop” hits for the last 5 or 6 songs of the evening.It wasn’t working for him so he went back to his setlist from the fall. Of course, this is my opinion, and not fact but I’m pretty sure from following him all these years that’s what happened.

I think the new material on his latest release, if he had performed them in the manner they were recorded, is very well suited to Lu’s style. I went to the first 3 shows of this leg, and it was in Jones Beach, after Milwaukee and Philadelphia, that she started telling the crowd that she felt like her and JM shared the same fan base. You should have seen the crowd in Detroit and Cincinnati…it was phenomenal, especially Detroit.

It’s a bummer to hear the crowd wasn’t there in LA. I hope Berkley is better.

I sure hope to do some road trips where Lu is headlining. I love road trips and meeting fans! Hopefully, she will be coming thru Cincinnati again or somewhere close soon. She certainly gets a lot of airplay and support on the public radio station I listen to and volunteer at…WNKU 89.7

The afternoon spinmeister at WNKU was at the Cincinnati show and the following day the first song he spun was “Joy” by Lu and then followed up with a Mellencamp one.

Your welcome on the upgrade Stevarino! I would have love to stayed and chatted with you however, as you know, I was on a mission.

I didn’t exactly give up my front row seat during Lu’s set, just was able to accommodate with a ticket I had from some friends with some of the empty seats. And, I’m a she, not a he ;-). I’m a music lover, and as one who knows, at least to some fans, what it means to watch up close an artist that you admire most, I was happy to help.

I’m posting a review that was written in “City Beat”, a free entertainment weekly magazine, promoting her stop in Cincinnati…a kindred spirit I met at A.J.s Roadhouse last night after the show pointed it out to me. I found it online to share.

http://citybeat.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A145693

Lucinda Williams with John Mellencamp
Wednesday • Riverbend Music Center

It’s hard to fathom now, but there really was a time when Lucinda Williams was not the iconic Americana artist that she is today.

Ten years ago Williams was a cultish singer/songwriter with a two-decade career and only four albums (on almost as many labels) and a largely undeserved reputation for being a studio perfectionist to show for it. Up to that point, Williams’ only hits had come when other singer/songwriters covered her songs; Williams copped a songwriting Grammy for Mary Chapin Carpenter’s turn on “Passionate Kisses.”

Then, in 1998, after an interminable five-year gap between albums, Williams dropped the brilliant, career-defining Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and never looked back. Car Wheels notched significant sales, scored a handful of Grammys, found its way onto critics’ Top 10 lists almost universally and made Williams the household name she had deserved to be all along.

Over the past 10 years, Williams has built steadily on the amazing success of Car Wheels but that growth has come at a significant emotional cost. 2001’s Essence was largely inspired by the end of her longstanding relationship with bassist Richard Price, 2003’s World Without Tears was similarly influenced and last year’s West was a sonic scrapbook dedicated to her recently deceased mother and the end of yet another romantic entanglement.

In the meantime, Williams’ stable label situation with Lost Highway has given her the confidence to tinker with her sound, as she’s branched out to include more and varied elements of Blues, Soul, Rock and Folk into her already engaging Country/Pop palette. For some artists it might sound like a hopeless cliché, but for Lucinda Williams, it’s the straight whiskey truth — after a 30-year career in music, her best work may still be ahead of her. Buy tickets, check out performance times and find nearby bars and restaurants here.