Ryan Adams at the Louisville Palace Monday night was a special show – a solo acoustic show that was both powerful and entertaining. He performed his songs passionately, and in between songs he interacted with the audience with his dark humor and wit. Throughout the show he had issues with his guitar tuning, pointing out that he had let Sonic Youth borrow his guitar the night before. Ryan was charmingly cynical about his work and poked fun at his lack of “happy songs”. When he introduced his songs he would start by saying stuff like, “This is a protest song…about happiness”, or, “This is another song about my feelings.”
The songs played were from various points from Adams’s career, mostly from his solo beginnings with Heartbreaker and Gold and from his most recent Ashes & Fire. His old songs still sounded great in various acoustic and piano renditions, and the new tracks off of Ashes & Fire already sound like classics. Notable highlights included a slow piano rendition of “New York, New York”, an unexpectedly folky rendition of “Two”, a crowd sing-a-long to fan favorite “Come Pick Me Up”, and a faithful cover of Alice In Chains’s “Nutshell”.
Here’s the set list.
Oh My Sweet Carolina
Ashes & Fire
If I Am A Stranger
Dirty Rain
My Winding Wheel
Sweet Lil Gal (23rd/1st)
Invisible Riverside
Everybody Knows
Firecracker
Let It Ride
Sylvia Plath
Chains of Love
Please Do Not Let Me Go
Lucky Now
Rescue Blues
Wonderwall
Crossed Out Name
New York, New York
Two
This House Is Not For Sale
16 Days (Whiskeytown)
Come Pick Me Up
Encore
Avenues (Whiskeytown)
Go Easy
Nutshell (Alice In Chains cover)
Brady is the founder of Headphone Nation. He’s responsible for all this mess. Sorry about that. He’s also on Twitter @BradyWGerber