"Now I'm gonna do a ballad," Ryan Adam's quipped mid way through his solo concert at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening, and thereby fell into the evenings epitaph. It was all ballads and one liners. And while the ballads were good, and the jokes were funny, there was something something samey and whatevery about the two and a quarter hour concert.
Here is what was good.
1. Ryan's singing was immaculate.
2. His guitar (if not his piano) playing, a wonder of delicacy and beauty that took full advantage of the institutions startlingly perfect acoustic.
3. He was enormously friendly and personable.
4. And yes he was funny.
Here is what wasn't good.
1. The setlist was a disappointment.
2. Sure, he could be brutish on stage in his youth but all this jocular crap is unseemly.
3. The set, even at two and a quarter hours, was too short.
With the music on a stand before him which he carried wherever he went , and moving from a seat to a standing microphone to a piano, Ryan opened, hardly for the first time, with "Oh My Sweet Carolina", and continuing with the title track of his latest album Ashes And Fire, before an oddly placed and slowed down "If I Am A Stranger", many songswere slowed down, but delicate and beautiful and ringing. And fourth song in is "Dirty Rain". The new songs sounded better played live, when heard in conjunction with his older material his L.A.centric tude is less unsettling. The album felt like the Dodgers leaving home.
The fifth song was "My Winding Wheel" and this is taken at a clip. and though the song is an audience fave, its response is not that much louder than the earlier songs. The reason is, the audience have been with Ryan from the get go. I myself couldn't get a tix on line and so jumped on the subway and went to Carnegie Hall in person, friends sitting in the row above me were telling of their own nightmares getting a tix. The room is sold out and it sold out fast. These are true believers.
And Ryan is playing with them as well as for them. "Just another night at Carnegie Hall" he laughs after reprimanding a woman for taking pictures with a flash light bulb. But then he feels bad. "You hate me," Ryan sighs. But the flash, an old fashioned one, is bright. And you can see the old Ryan restraining his temper. The first time I saw the guy was with Whiskeytown, opening for John Fogerty at Radio City Music Hall in 1998. He called Fogerty an asshole. I've heard (though not seen) stories of him throwing out audience members he didn't like. And the woman in question can be thankful we're getting a kinder, gentler Adams tonight. He shrugs it off, "You can take as many pictures as you like," he smiles. "Just don't disturb the people sitting around you."
Then he starts "Everybody Knows" and stops the song in its tracks. "You think you know it? What if you're wrong?" he asks as we begin to cheer, and he starts playing some hard rock licks, pretending to be a fan for a moment he says, "'Oh snap, I told you it was this one". then he settles in and performs it fine and his consistent witticisms are good as well but,… this is a trick I use when I don't want to be serious with people. I will just talk in endless puns, wordplays, jokes: it implies a closeness which doesn't really exist. And that was the feeling I was getting from Ryan.
Still it didn't seriously distract when Ryan is performing superb, very beautiful and moving versions of songs as good as "Firecracker" and a Cold Roses song that left me cold on the album but was ( I feel like a worn out record, but it is the same adjectives because it is a similar experience), moving, "Let It Ride". Adams uses the acoustics to superb effect, he was finger picking the songs, on a "Two" which is sensitive, quiet, pure melody, sometimes barely a whisper, the place becomes a cathedral, the fans transparently mesmerized.
So it is all good, right? More or less but right in the middle, from "Dear Chicago" to "Lucky Now", a span of four songs, are a bore, and all the putting on and taking off of leather jackets didn't help. Two pieces of improvisation, "Howard Is Beautiful" based on a shouted comment, and "Thanks For Coming To The Show", are not as smart as he thinks they are. And the absolutely nadir, a terrible, slow as molasses, piano (yes, I know) played "New York, New York" -like a dirge or a requiem, or something is morbid and not pleasant. As Ryan notes "I'm really not sensitive, I'm really a bastard."
ON THE OTHER HAND -just Ryan, a piano and a coupla guitars… it is difficult to be toooooo mean.
ON A THIRD HAND… no "English Girls Approximately". Fuck me, he played it the night before at the Ed Sullivan theater, God forbid we get it, Or "To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Get High)" . Still we did get "Crossed Out name" so…
And a terrific "Come Pick me Up".
I can't put my finger on the problem, but it felt slight. It felt like he didn't bring his A game, it felt like the more intimate L.A. gigs were better. Perhaps Ryan's ease worked against him; his joking on his days in nyc were the least funny moments. There was no sense of a homecoming. This was a different Ryan, his comfort in his own skin was palpable and he managed to be serious and be funny. I shouldn't hold it against him yet I do. The intensity was there but it felt dispersed.
The set ended with a song off the 2007 EP Follow The Light. Eh?
Grade B+
Setlist
Oh My Sweet Carolina
Ashes And fire
If I Am A Stranger
Dirty rain
My Winding wheel
My Blue Manhattan
Invisible Riverside
Everybody Knows
Firecracker
Let It ride
Dear Chicago
Chains Of Love
Please do not Let me go
Lucky Now
Two
Crossed Out Name
New York new York
Howard Is beautiful
Do I Wait
Jacksonville Skyline
Round And Round
16 days
Thank You For Coming To The Show
Come Pick me Up
Blue Hotel