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Yep, Paul, should have put the old proverbial slash mark after “Joy,” for she did segue into “Riders” from it that night. I’m pretty sure in Ottawa that she did not, however.
Lefty, I think the weeping trilogy is just coincidence, but good that you noted that. What is more intriguing is whether the slash mark in the setlist means she abandoned “Reason to Cry” (which hadn’t been performed in awhile, certainly not on this tour) for “Overtime” (which she had played the night before in Maine) without finishing “Reason.” And Lafayette, did you know Mellencamp once recorded “Lafayette”–and not a bad version either? The night he trots that one out live might be the night to get back on the touring bandwagon. . . .
@fallgirl wrote:
Being a regular to Big Top Chautauqua, I always love to see the reactions of those visiting for the first time. *L* Welcome to far north WI. We are incredibly far from everything and usually, it suits me fine.
I’m not surprised Lu lingo was lost on the parking lot or gate attendants. Most of those folks are volunteers and in the course of a summer, they field and direct fans for many big name performers, including Lu and Willie Nelson.
A concert under a giant canvas tent is a unique experience but Lu’s sound people seemed to deal quite quickly with the issue of such a space.
The concert was grand and even the stodgiest of tourists seemed to eat up her music.
I feel the need to call attention to Buick 6 and make special mention of Dave Sutton. Far too often the bass player goes forgotten but he makes it impossible not to notice. His passion and talent mix perfectly with Lu’s raw sound.
Oh, and for the record, next time, just ask for the poster…The folks at Big Top Chautauqua are some of the coolest folks around *L*
Thanks for the insider’s scoop here. Yeah, I should have asked for the poster, but the headquarters building was dark (though obviously unlocked), and no human seemed around, initially. At the venue itself, “stodgy” tourists were legion, as you say (and maybe this is a nice play on my Lucinda Forum handle). Finally, you have a great community radio station out of Reserve, WI, a name I had to look for on my roadmap after stumbling across the station in my rental car. I won’t even try to spell the French name of the larger town. The afternoon “Porch” show was playing the likes of Gram Parsons and Jay Farrar, and in the wee hours driving back to Eau Claire, I was treated to Lu’s own “Rescue.” I envy (the wind, yes, too) your getting to live in such a beautiful place.
Thanks, Tim, for the photo and review link here (also for the Philly link: surprised Lu did “Jailhouse Tears” there last night, presumably with Doug as the nemesis?). There’s a history of Lu “meltdowns” in Iowa, though I haven’t witnessed them: anything but this time, as the reviewer pointed out. I don’t buy the Amy Winehouse analogy, that’s too limiting for a great song which resonates (and isn’t “Little Rock n Roller” more of a Marshall Chapman title than Lu’s actual title here?). I thought the review was especially good on Buick 6; I got the Led Zep but didn’t pick up on the Ventures cover, at the time. Please continue to keep us linked up and filled in.
Thanks for the setlist; “Overtime” and “Blue” are tour premieres, too bad the latter wasn’t done for the British chap I met in Minnesota. I’m not sure we’re likely to get a Neil cover from Lu as a show-closer, but too bad Buick6 didn’t have a go in Maine and trot out “Cinammon Girl.” At least you got part of “If Wishes Were Horses,” sounds like, more than just the title a la Milwaukee. It will happen. And Lu has played more intimate places than this in the day, but probably not in recent memory, for sure. It’s great that she played that venue.
Not many mistakes in the setlist at all: well captured! “Are You Alright” was in front of “Right in Time,” and I think you had “Real Love” and “Tears of Joy” reversed, but you’re right that it was rockin’. I too was front, if not exactly centered–not enough of a Ladytron fan for that, to stake early claim. Doug’s guitar had to be changed out during “Tears of Joy.” Before “Bone of Contention,” Lu announced that the band had encouraged her to do it solo again last night, having heard it that way in Milwaukee. But they entered midstream, and it was superb. She prefaced it with a variation on Milwaukee’s show’s intro: “this is my 4th of July political statement.” As for “It’s a Long Way to the Top,” this was the first time she specifically mentioned AC-DC in front of it.
Immediately afterward, I had to choose between Richard Thompson and Chuck Prophet, each having started a quarter hour before Lu finished. Since Thompson was playing solo, I went indoors to the 231-seat air-conditioned stage, not very full at all at that hour. Chuck did best he could; we were a sedate audience. Afterwards, it was a pleasure to stand outside and chat with him and Stephanie Finch, while listening to the strains of Steely Dan across the way. Donald Fagan (sp?) even acknowledged Lu during the set, as the bands on the two major stages were staggered as to avoid the sonic overlap which happened in Milwaukee. I had to miss Otis Taylor completely. As Chuck Prophet himself put it to me, “I was my own fourth choice”–Williams, Steely Dan, and Thompson overlapping at least partially with his own set. Prophet is probably the best Lu opener (2002) I’ve ever heard, to this day.
Hope someone else will pick up the ball and post for Maine and the Mellencamps: the ride ends here for me, ’till Atlanta. . .
@spotop wrote:
I was there last night running a spotlight. It was a great show. In fact probably the best show I’ve ever worked at summerfest. After the complaints of the volume level coming from ( Thievery Corporation at ) the Miller Stage, the head electrician and stage manager on headset scrambled to solve the problem. After calls to the stage manager at the Miller stage went unanswered the production manager for the entire ground was called to step in. A song later the decible level went down at least 10 dbs. Which made the show much more bearable and Lucinda had turned up the volume and rocked the f*** out. I felt like she won the fight and made me respect her even more. By playing long after the other stage had gone dark and even after the festival grounds had closed. Everyone who stuck around for the whole show was treated to an amazing evening. It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock n roll!!!
Thanks for the background info. Here’s an ironic touch: Lucinda has been playing a Thievery Corporation song live a fair amount, “Marching the Hate Machines into the Sun”–though she didn’t do it at this show.
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. . . .
Well done, Stu: I too had rerouting issues into Iowa City, and I was under the impression that the Englert Theatre was an auditorium on the U of Iowa campus. Much funkier and grittier than that, as you say: how about those souvenir green ticket stubs? You don’t get that out of TicketBastard.
Your setlist was completely spot-on. I’ll add just a few comments. Yes, the show was referred to as the tour opener by Lu before song two, as she understandably wanted a tabula rasa after Milwaukee (which of course had fine moments of its own). The intro before “Are You Alright” was very extended, with mention of her brother Robert living somewhere in LA. Elaborate intros were spoken before “Tears of Joy”; the new sound man is James from Capetown, South Africa; one guitar tech (who got a kiss on the lips from Lu upon walk-on, surely a good omen) named Gil is formerly of Ya Lo Tengo; Doug’s guitar tech Wolfie is from Scotland. “Out of Touch” was introduced with a shout-out to homeboy Bo Ramsey. “Little Rock Star” was compared by Lu to “Drunken Angel,” and she also revealed that Matthew Sweet will do vocals on the studio version. But it’s not the live premiere of that song, though she said so: she did it at the Dylan tribute in LA this year, and I’ve heard it at least once before, maybe at El Rey last fall. It may be the live debut of a reworked version, true enough. Truly, “Heaven Blues” was a first, and beautiful (but “Doors of Heaven” will not be on the upcoming record). I agree “Knowing” was a bit slower than in past, started so slow in fact that LU said “that’s OK, we need to calm down anyway” as encore began. I think they are leaning toward putting the ACDC cover on the record, which would be the first studio record since Car Wheels with any covers, right?
A bit more Buick6 dope: insofar as the band had a frontman, it was Doug, though he said virtually nothing besides thank you except (1) “some of you might recognize this next song” and (2) “we’d like to thank Lucinda Williams for inviting us over from Scotland to open.” They are still finding a center, I think, though I liked most of the songs. Ironically, Lu’s thick lyric book was prominent on stage while the guys worked their way through the all-instrumental opener. Lots of instrument-changing, Doug on harmonica for last song, chair brought out for Butch to sit in front of drum kit for one song, previewing what he did later during LU’s encore. It’s been almost exactly 11 months since Chet made his band debut, also in the state of Iowa.
Final footnote on Saturday night in Milwaukee: James told me he had never mixed Lucinda before that night, had never even heard her songs if I understood him right. This is probably standard in the business, if a bit shocking. But the sound was great in Iowa, and no one was plugging in cables mere minutes before the walk-on. It’s getting better, and going to be fantastic in the days ahead.
Thanks, everybody, for responding. I’m hard by the venue at moment and yes, you can expect an Iowa City report within hours. Tim, send me an e-mail or otherwise make yourself known to me and we’ll canvass at the Twin Cities Zoo. Carrie was too modest to mention the matrimonial tie, I guess. IJ, I hope I didn’t suggest a “trainwreck” in my report; you are right that the first half was superb, culminating in “Real Love.” And as a matter of fact, that “certain band member” confessed to me when I ran into him eating a bratwurst on the upper deck shortly into Mellencamp’s set. I just didn’t want to finger him by name here (and will respect IJ’s wishes and not do so now either). Not even a hint. And I can’t help wondering if that other Forum member lwho posted recently got his singles date out of the deal in Milwaukee. All is not pure LU: gossip anyone?
And to keep the sweet thang going, isn’t Lucinda’s contribution to the Fats Domino tribute record called “Honeychild?”
@rachel8375 wrote:
Can’t remember which thread it was in, but the working title was “Little Honey”, and I can’t remember the exact line verbatim in the song, but it was something like: They call you little honey/And they sleep in your bed, I think.
Wow, Little Honey as the overall title of a record which also includes, no doubt, the song “Honeybee.” Yeah!!
According to setlists I compiled during the Pettibone “acoustic” tour, “Rarity” was played at least twice live, on March 12, 2006 in Ohio as someone mentioned (bootleg? bootleg?), and also on March 3 at the “Voodoo Lounge” inside Harrah’s of Kansas City. In my notes I called it a “soft” song with a Leonard Cohen allusion; it’s about the music business and I believe about a specific female singer in California who was struggling to make it. Maybe Inside Job can supplement this lore. It would appear from my notes that Lucinda hesitated before doing it live–then closed out the evening with “Disgusted” and “Down the Big Road Blues” following it. Voodoo indeed! In Ohio “Rarity” was the final song of the encore, the evening. But what’s the working title of the new record? I missed that. Does it have to do with Cohen?
Thanks Tim; I didn’t nab front row, but third row center/left will do me nicely. But Iowa City is not the “tour opener” any more, nor is Philly the Mellencamp/Lu debut. Only High Road lists this: a 28 June Mellencamp/Lu date, Marcus Ampitheatre, Milwaukee. Still red seats left. So she’s playing Summerfest twice in six days, two different stages, two different formats. The Great Midwest is looking finer and finer. Here’s hoping the Dement-Brown-Brown-Ramsey crowd will turn out for Iowa city. . . .
