Lucinda Williams in Greensboro NC: A Review

I’ve always liked Lucinda Williams, though I am hardly an expert on her music. I’ve seen her on TV a few times. She always seemed rather conflicted, dark, uber-melancholy, frail, and fragile. When I’ve seen her in TV performances she has been almost statuesque and about as non-demonstrative as one can be. Nevertheless I have always thought she was a very gifted songwriter, one of the very very best of our generation. And I personally dig her voice.

I really wasn’t prepared for what hit me Sunday night at the Carolina Theater. First let me say that the experience of attending a concert at Carolina Theater was very positive. My seats in the front of the mezzanine were super. The sound quality was great. It’s a great venue for music.

I was quite taken and intrigued by Lucinda Williams herself. What I saw Sunday night did not match the mental image that I had developed – at all! There was a relaxed ease about her. She was way more chatty than I expected, very human and personable. She did a good job introducing the songs. Her performance also evidenced to me that she has rediscovered herself, her calling, her joy in music, and her voice - her voice was Lucinda Williams on steroids - strong, passionate, powerful, still with that gravely quality but also holding huge notes long and clear. She even looked stronger physically, maybe a little heavier, in a good sense, in that she has seemed to be quite frail to me in the past. She shared that she was engaged to her manager, and that at her age, and without kids, it can be quite hard on the road, and that is was very nice to be able to travel with your partner. She spoke of her songs as being her children, and her band as her family. Lucinda Williams had said herself early on that she thought she was at the peak of her career, and I totally agree with her assessment.

Her attire was interesting in its own way . She had on this utterly awful and totally endearing outfit where nothing "matched" whatsoever - she had kind of a retro hippie thing going plus a big cowboy hat, tons of eye make up, and a couple of her big tattoo’s popping out from her shoulders and upper arms. It seemed she was just cool with herself and really didn't care what you thought about how she looked. She moved a lot around the stage almost dancing, and so totally groovin' to the band, quite nicely giving them their place and their due, and very much seeming to dig their sound.

She even 'fessed up to the obvious - a notebook on a stand in front of her containing lyrics to her songs. She expressed wonder that people like Dylan and others could remember all their lyrics, and that she didn’t want to forget the words, thus the book.

The concert started with several Lucinda staples of the more alt-country variety. I have the set list below. I like her alt-country thing, so that was fine by me. In fact, I would say that between her voice and the band the music was beautiful and excellent. "Blue" was beyond beautiful. I was charmed.

When she introduced the 8th song, “Are You Alright,” she first said that contrary to common belief the song was not about an ex lover, but about her little brother. And then she mentioned a letter from a Vietnam veteran (who was also there at the show), wherein he shared that he had gone to Arlington Cemetery and sung that song to a fallen friend from Vietnam. She not only dedicated “Are You Alright” to this man, but also used that as a kind of thematic pivot for the rest of the show.

It wasn’t long before she put behind the alt-country thing and the show became a first rate rock concert. This began in full force with “Are You Down,” a song that has a kind of “Brazilian” thing about it (in her words). From then on every song included extended instrumental interludes, and those guys can flat out play, including Lucinda. I leaned over to my daughter during "Are You Down” and said that they sounded like the old Santana, and that was no small compliment. And it just went from there...by the time she sang her song “Joy” the band was smokin’ hot, and then they segued from "Joy” to “Riders on the Storm.” Wow, that was not expected, and it was groovy with a very big “G.” She finished out the pre-encore set with a hard-rockin' version of a really amazing song, “Unsuffer Me.”

Somewhere in all the incredible band work I felt a joy well up, that sort of transcendent happiness one like me feels at a butt kicking rock concert. I’m going to reflect upon that in a later post.

The closing set of five songs contained only one of her own, the rest were covers, amazingly well done. I need here to offer a word of criticism. I mentioned that she was chatty. Well, apparently the aforementioned letter had led her to change her set list to include songs consistent with a kind of sixties anti war theme. That’s fine of course, whether I agree with her or not. And I really liked the songs. In fact, she did the last four songs unbelievably well, and ended dramatically with the best version of Bob Dylan's “Masters Of War” that I have ever heard or could ever imagine hearing. It was powerful.

In contrast, her ranting was ineffectual and a little distracting. Well, it’s hard to call it ranting really, she talks so slowly, with “you know” breaking every sentence multiple times. She was a little apologetic for talking, maybe realizing the fact that, well, she is a much better song writer than speaker. I think she was self conscious about her obvious struggle to be articulate. I will say that she admitted that she didn’t know the answers, she was self effacing and humble, and she encouraged people to vote, and said she didn’t want to say who to vote for.

But there was still this “shut up and sing” thing going on in my head. And I think it was warranted. Like many artists she is much more persuasive and articulate and speaks way more powerfully through her art. I will go as far as to say that there is nothing she could have possibly said, were she John Kennedy himself, that could have added one iota to the power of the last few songs, especially “Masters Of War.” In fact, her talking took some of the oomph out of that song if anything, and left me a little less impressed overall. Her closing farewell of “peace, love, and revolution” was just kind of silly.

But I didn’t really care that much, for I had been treated to music of the highest quality, by a song writer with few peers, renewed and invigorated in singing and writing and obviously happy to be doing what she was doing, and for that I just say “thanks Lucinda,” and thanks for booking her Carolina Theater!

Greensboro Set List, September 23, 2007

1. Ventura
2. Fruits Of My Labor
3. Reason To Cry
4. Blue
5. Price To Pay
6. World Without Tears
7. Everything Has Changed
8. Are You Alright?
9. Drunken Angel
10. Are You Down?
11. Honey Chile (Fats Domino)
12. Honeybee (new song – not yet recorded)
13. Joy
14. Riders On The Storm (The Doors)
15. Unsuffer Me

Encore:

Poem Read – Pity the Nation

16. American Dream
17. For What It's Worth (Buffalo Springfield)
18. Marching The Hate Machine Into The Sun (Thievery Corporation, with lyrics penned by Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips)
19. Masters Of War (Bob Dylan)