Lafayette

@punchdrunklove wrote:

i’ll be there.

Very happy for you if this comes to fruition!

My dear friend Roger ~

Loved your response, but it would be so much easier to read, if you would follow a few simple steps.

Tick the “Quote” box/link. Type your comment/response AFTER the quote marks.

I’m not picking on you, really, just a little tip in forum posting. 😀 😆 8)

I want one too! Love it! And yes, tnt, I know you luv Blue. 😀

P.S. I’m proud and honored to know you, lefty, as you had no markups from the Professor on your previous post.

Very cool! One for the books.

Very nice, tnt! One of us needs to give a written account of our Nashville excursion. I’ve been meaning to blog it, however, sidetracked with other projects.

A followup from Tad Dickens regarding the Roanoke show.

http://www.roanoke.com/extra/wb/300732

First off, let’s truck in a little rumor control: Despite some scuttlebutt that’s floated around Roanoke, Lucinda Williams did not cancel a bunch of her shows after her Oct. 25 performance at Jefferson Center.

Setlists, Facebook comments from fans, even a review in the Allentown, Pa., Morning Call’s music blog seem to prove it. Responding to an email, Williams’ husband and manager, Tom Overby, said that as far as he knows, she has not canceled a concert since Sept. 11, 2001.

Maybe that rumor sprang from some small collective desire to explain what was up with Williams, who twice stopped her Jefferson Center show because of issues she was having with the sound. Of course, that was her own fault, she admitted with apologies, telling the audience she had missed sound check.

Overby wrote in the email exchange: “She only goes into some sound checks once we get going — when you’re playing two hours a night 5-6 nights a week, we just try to be careful with her voice. We also had just finished a stretch of four in a row, which we very rarely ever do.”

Performers miss sound checks. It happens. And that sometimes leads to sound troubles — which leads to another sort of rumor, for lack of a better word.

In this case, the rumor was that it was Jefferson Center’s fault that the sound was off. This was apparently based on my Oct. 26 review of the show, which is online at roanoke.com/wb/300285.

Nowhere in that review did I write that Jefferson Center was responsible for the sound. Maybe I could have been more specific about who exactly was running sound, but with 14 column inches to work in, there was no room for that sort of breakdown.

So, Susan Gibson of Stage Sound fielded “lots of calls” about the issue. Stage Sound supplies the P.A. system for Jefferson Center shows, including Williams’ concert. And Stage Sound’s Gibson runs sound for many of the shows there – including a beautifully mixed Lionel Loueke Trio jazz show on Oct. 15 at the Jeff’s rehearsal hall.

But she wasn’t at the Williams show. And though Stage Sound provided the main speakers and P.A. amps, Williams’ crew provided mics, monitors, consoles and sound engineer, Gibson wrote in an email the day my review ran.

Sorry your phone blew up that day, Susan.

Booms and clams

Williams complained during the set that the sound was too “boomy.” Moments like those can be really interesting. How will the crowd respond? How will the band respond?

The audience members who yelled at those points were on Williams’ side. Interestingly enough, most of the band wound up with a temporary case of the “clams.” (In musical parlance, a clam is a little mistake.)

Williams and her band were playing her song “Greenville” the second time she stopped to deal with sound. Once they got back into it, they were clearly off their game.

The otherwise monstrous guitarist Blake Mills blew easy country-style double-stop licks. Drummer Butch Norton, a groove king with lots of taste, blew his tambourine groove for a second. And Williams sang flat for most of the song.

From there, the sound remained stable, and the band re-established its subtle-to-shocking style.

When young Mills wasn’t spinning guitar lines that often went beyond my ability to describe, he provided great texture to fill spaces left open in the trio format. Norton grooved deeply in the pocket, and bassist David Sutton, who never seemed fazed by the stoppages, continued doing his thing.

Williams’ singing continued to strengthen as the set rolled on, though she did have trouble with the near-staccato phrasing of “Righteously.”

Really, the whole night just made the performers come off as more human than one typically gets at a big show.

As one who often feels a bit too human, I appreciate that.

Thank you TO for posting set lists for those shows unattended by FF members.

Great set list!

punchdrunk…”Where Is My Love” made the cut for this show 😀 — one I’m glad to see as well.