stoger

The gang walk on at 9:12, in a show listed and advertised as “Lucinda Williams and her Band” for 8:00. Some opener was added, and he played till about 8:40.

1 Steal Your Love
2 Protection
3 Right in Time
4 Car Wheels [Lu speaks much of Miller after, including the “special moment” between father and daughter when he first heard this song]
5 Pineola [Lu shyly wonders if this one was “too Southern” for the audience, but ends up saying the crowd seemed to appreciate it]
6 People Talkin’
7 Big Black Train [Lu frets after that maybe her songs are too much downers]
8 Lake Charles [more spoken in the lore of Clyde Woodward, who took Lu to her first Clifton Chenier show in Houston]
9 Blue
10 Are You Down
11 Pray the Devil… [Lu frets further and calls herself “neurotic”]
12 Stolen Moments
13 Essence [Lu tells the audience after to check both “rock” and “country” bins in record stores for her stuff]
14 Righteously
15 Honeybee
16 Joy
________________________________________________
17 You Can’t Rule Me
18 Rockin’ in the Free World {Lu has to go to the breath spray and the water bottle early in song and never fully recovers: Doug, Stu, and David take the choral vocals, and Doug even points his mike to audience to get us singing]
It’s walk-off time time, but Lu comes back to mike and apologizes for the “fucking cough,” promising to return soon.

Sean and Tony, wish you were here…

Have we given up on the two midwestern Labor Day weekend gigs, Mr. Keymaster?

This hits hard, and I’m especially sorry for seangod and his driving distance. Thanks for the report despite all, seangod.

The list is accurate. The longest intro was for “Big Black Train,” not just the usual Springsteen praise, but deep into the lack of mental health funding in our country, the need for socialized medicine, et. al.

Lu seemed to think after song #11 that it was walk-off time, but obviously righted the ship there.

“Foolishness” was the most pleasant surprise, though without the “racism” and “sexism” interpolations–guess the new electronic lyric monitors determined that.

Here’s hoping seangod and/or others will pick up the reports in the MidAtlantic and New England. . . .

1 Steal Your Love
[a long interlude, as Lu examines such things as the pronunciation of “Saxapahaw,” the distinctions among Native American tribes, and the old Yankee/Southern divide–New Yorker Jesse Malin is purportedly laughing in the wings at this]
2 Protection
[Lu stalls again with pronunciation talk, then says she “will get in trouble” if she keeps going on in this vein]
3 Car Wheels [title cut off an album “against which all my other albums are always judged”]
4 Right in Time
5 Pineola
6 People Talkin’ [lovely electric mandolin from DP]
7 Big Black Train
8 Lake Charles [with the longest intro imaginable, much of it in a culinary vein, ending on reflections about how much Loretta Lynn used to talk on stage]
9 Blue
10 Are You Down
11 Pray the Devil back to Hell [Stuart lighting it up on violin]
12 Stolen Moments
13 Essence
14 Honeybee
15 Joy
_____________________________________________________________
16 You Can’t Rule Me
17 Rockin’ in the Free World

Great show, audience going wild for much of it. Too bad the venue can’t seem to decide about door and opening act times; Jesse Malin went on a full thirty minutes before the listed/advertised time (stirring set). We’ll see again tonite.

I believe I failed to emphasize (though I did empathize) the co-bill nature of this show, with Waxahatchee. Frontwoman Katie Crutchfield dedicated her song “Lilacs” to Lu; below is a link to her interview from Lucinda’s Nashville home during the height of Covid. This interview may have appeared elsewhere in Forum, but here it is:

http://interviewmagazine.com/uncategorized/katie-crutchfield-and-lucinda-williams-on-staying-power-and-major-label-bullshit

I’m feeling the Tar Heel State at moment. I believe a certain band member lives a few miles from Saturday’s venue. . . .