Goodnight Ryan

I've been feeling very nostalgic about my boy Ryan this week it being both the most recent time I saw him and (supposably) his last show. I guess 8 shows in 4 states over 12 years, 13 records, inumerable singles and 10 bootlegs will do that to a fan. It's hard to be objective so I'm going to seperate the actual review from the rest of my impressionistic musings.

The Cardinals w/Ryan Adams

Louisville Palace

March 16, 2009

First let me say I like the Cardinals as much as anybody and I'm pleased, as I've said before, that Ryan has straightened himself out and is happy living clean and sober. But as a concertgoer, well, sometimes I wish for the bad old Ryan. The Ryan who could heckle back with the best of them. The Ryan who would play the same song twice in a row, once off tempo, once on, just because he could. Yeah, it could be annoying-the down side of the wacky between song patter-but it was always interesting.

Monday's show at the Palace? Not so much.

Now there were some great moments-"Come Pick Me Up"* was fabulous and such a surprise so early in the show, Ryan hit notes in "Wonderwall" I haven't heard in years and "Two" was also beautifully done-but overall there seemed no thought given to pacing at all which left a big draggy group of midtempo songs all clustered together. I realize that with the name change, taking first billing away from himself, Ryan was attempting to be just the Cardinals. And if they had the chance to do more records together they might have gotten there-Neal Casal's 3 songs were fine songs. They just weren't, truth be told, especially in light of the announcement that this was to be the last tour, what we all came for. I was hoping, and I bet I wasn't the only one, that this show would be less Cardinal-centric. That they'd pick up a few more pre-Cardinal songs not Whiskeytown of course but "Firecracker"? "Wish You Were Here"? Please? As a final hurrah? But no.

So goodbye David Ryan Adams, I'll look for you on the printed page and hope that you'll have a change of heart about the music.

*I would gladly stand on a therapist's coffee table and proclaim "Come Pick Me Up" to be the best codependant, fucked up relationship song ever. Begging for someone to steal your records? Now that's messed up. Shot through with bittersweet longing cut with cold acknowlegment of the inevitability of just how badly everything is going to end, it's one of Ryan's absolute best. There's a reason people yell for it at every show and it's not just because it drops the F bomb.