Ryan Adams Cardinology Rarity

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals City: Baton rouge, LA Venue: The River Center Theatre Date: 2009-03-05One has to wonder whether people attend a Ryan Adams show to experience great music or to, perchance, witness an epic artist meltdown. The stories of his growing battle with deafness and on-stage equilibrium migraines from Meniere's Disease are heartbreaking, but tales of him verbally abusing crowds before quitting the stage make Adams a far less sympathetic character. The giant Cardinology cardinal that graces the stage preshow could as easily be the symbolic Phoenix ready to rescue Adams from the ashes. But which version of the artist would arise?As the stage goes dark, then lava blue with the help of two subtle neon rose lights, the Cardinals enter. A mop-topped Adams strolls on stage and begins playing 'Everybody Knows' without acknowledging the crowd. For the first several songs, no hint of an angry or suffering man appears.

Although he continually adjusts his earpiece, Adams doesn't appear pained, and from my seat in row S, I can see him smiling between vocal lines.Sound problems will plague the audience for the entirety of the evening, but not Adams and the band. Adams' guitar is considerably louder than anything else on stage, and his vocals are too quiet and lost in reverb to cut through the five-piece band.

Whether Adams' guitar volume is an accident, the panacea of a deaf musician, or ego sublimation doesn't really matter. Adams is the most interesting thing on stage. His vocals, muddy and soft, still plead their emotional case if the listener is willing to strain to hear it through the din. His voice, his songs, and his personality are the stars of the evening. Even his electric rhythm playing, purposely pinched with behind-the-beat slop, shimmers as a rhythmic and aesthetic counterpoint to the session men constituting the Cardinals, and Adams' rhythm playing stands out as an edgier voice murmuring in a community of well-rehearsed conversation.

The Cardinals by themselves don't rock, or at least they don't rock hard. Their performance aesthetic is one of control, not abandon. Later, they, along with their leader, will explode during the encore.

Ryan Adams Cardinology Rarity Face

But none of them explode individually at any point during the night, leaving little doubt that their suggested continuance without Adams may be short-lived.That being said, tonight's show is worth the price. Between songs, Adams' speaks in funny voices, cracks jokes, and mocks young girls' screams with teenage screams of his own. At one point, pedal steel player Jon Graboff will jokingly list potential Law and Order spinoffs he expects to see, such as Law and Order SUV and Law and Order Enough Already. And it works. The band's banter helps break the potential high art pretension that comes with Adams' persona. Comedy and mimicry aside, an unexpectedly loose feel accompanies most of the up-tempo songs.

Adams and the Cardinals are a band, not a star plus guns for hire, and it is obvious that these musicians enjoy the personal experience of playing with each other. Tunes such as 'I See Monsters' find the band more willing to give up studio ghosts, perhaps because there is less pressure to 'reproduce' the tear-inducing ballads such as 'Two' or 'Everybody Knows' in all their somber glory. 'Wonderwall' a perennial concert favorite, marries the balladeer, former punkster, and rock guitar wrangler in Adams, allowing his stick figure to contort and subsume the Strat beneath him, and allowing both band and crowd to share in evolving improvisations of well-trodden material.' What a kick ass audience you are,' Adams yells, smiling, playing the role of the rock star giving the audience that highest of compliment - being 'kick-ass.' Yet Adams means it, and his dedication to playing an energetic show seals an honesty rather than cynicism in his compliment.

Tonight, Adams intends on enjoying his waning time with the Cardinals and the huddled masses of fans that he has jeered and insulted in the past.The band play a brief rendition of 'Two', sounding album perfect, followed by 'Sink Ships' from their latest album, Cardinology. 'Sink Ships' typifies the artist's process: A narrative of loss. Verses filled with memories. A chorus that judges the memories. Images of shining sun in empty rooms splashed across the story to guarantee both the judged and the judge lose.

Live, 'Sink Ships' and other mid-tempo material from Cardinology breathe better than their studio counterparts. A more democratic live sound mix strips the studio perfectionism of Adams, and the songwriter's precociousness disappears into a less self-conscious live performance that emphasizes the moment and mood, not the critical posterity Adams has shown an acute awareness of during blogs and interviews.Many of Cardinology’s songs are short and remain so live.

One could make accusations that even without the constraints of radio play, the songs remain underdeveloped in their live form. However, the band tends to save development for particular tunes, such as 'Wonderwall' and the night's closer, 'Bartering Lines'. Between these mood setters, the band jabs you with four-minute pop songs.

As if to prove this, Adams plays through an album-quick version of 'Fix It'. His nasally vocals sound Tom Petty-ish during the verse, but return to a chorus of lush, cottony chords as he lifts the gloom and promises to fix your broken heart, all in four minutes.As if to fire the imagination of audience members awaiting an epic Adams tantrum, one final pet peeve of the singer's arrives after the band finishes “Fix It”. After backing to his amp and removing himself from the crowd, he begins laconically strumming his guitar until the stars begin to go blue. The sonically alert in the crowd cheer, recognizing the stirrings of a mega-hit.

The rest of the crowd does not recognize the song until his clear voice begins to sing the first verse. This less sonically aware half of the crowd begins to cheer and whistle, disturbing the thick emo atmosphere born in laconic strums.

In the past, Adams has openly “instructed” audiences on how to behave and criticized American rock audience's penchant for football-stadium screams during the most intimate of concert moments. Tonight, Adams raises his hand to shush the crowd politely and continues singing.By show’s end, Adams and the Cardinals have played a fair dose of songs from Cardinology and nearly every song you'd want them to play from their past.

Clearly, newer 'classic' tunes such as 'Magick' hold up. “Magick”’s opening chords are rife in rock indulgence. Its lyrics, somewhere between pissed-off break-up song and promise of a muscular spiritual experience through radio, are a new addition to Adams-the-therapist's lyrical offerings. This more hammer-like Adams bristles one's guts and neck hairs with an emotional alternative to the spiny pensiveness of emo, and the evening’s dynamics are upgraded to “legitimate climax.”The band retires the stage after a folk-naked 'Oh My Sweet Carolina', returning seconds later for a fifteen-minute rendition of 'Bartering Lines' that sees the band more unified and powerful than during the four-minute pop tunes.

The band, at its best when extending and bending long-term moods, recreate and sustain the earlier magic of 'Wonderwall' and 'I See Monsters', but with the strange condition of Adam's low-decibel murmurs and cawing into the mic as he flaps and rolls his arms to the beat, part Cardinal, part Phoenix in ashes.After the caws and murmurs stop with the obligatory rock bang and the band exits, the state of Adams’ world seems one of contentedness and earnest rock ‘n' rolling. Rumored to be at work on a new album, but with a performing career self-admittedly in doubt, the man witnessed tonight, most likely the true Ryan Adams, will be missed. And so will his Cardinals. May we hope for an upcoming stage to his career that equals his previous magic without the storm clouds and mushroom clouds of Adams' personal fortunes interfering with his considerable talent.

I LOVE Ryan Adams. There's no denying it, it's the real thing. This time next year when we're queueing up to put our X in the 'Artist Of The Decade' polls, I know where my cross is going. From the first shots of Whiskeytown to the gazillion solo chasers he's downed since 2000's Heartbreaker, no one's soundtracked my noughties existence – the tears, tantrums and dancing on table tops - like Mr. 'Ain't no B in Ryan, Sucka' Adams. In fact, there's no one less suitable to be reviewing this, but hey I'm here now so let us give thanks and praise.Being a RA fan is like being a Mozzer or Manics fan.

The devoted are as blindly obsessive as the razor-toothed critics are savage. Accusations of arrogance, pomposity, alcoholism, womanising and churning out the same ol' tat over and over again.but enough about me, this is supposed to be a Ryan Adams review. Let's just say if you didn't rate Jacksonville's finest before, you won't dig Cardinology and even those who did may feel frustrated (again).Overall Cardinology follows the traditional country rock of Cold Roses (ie. Willie Nelson armwrestling The Band) but has an opening path which is troublingly so-so. Curtain raiser, Born Into A Light is so shoulder shruggingly underwhelming, it's a shock to the system. Luckily Go Easy - Adams channelling Ocean Rain-era Bunnymen, with a great yearning baby Bono yelp - at least registers on the quality ticker. But it's seriously short.

Ryan Adams

Similarly the single, Fix It, which smoulders in a matinee idol stylee but is ushered away with rude haste. Magick would've made a better single but again it's pocket-sized. It whips up a daft but amusing storm and is seemingly influenced by touring buddies Oasis with its written-on-a-fag-packet lyric ”Zombies running round.what goes around comes around.so turn your radio up”. I'm adamant Adams is one of America's choice lyricists but listening to Magick I'd have trouble proving it. Four songs in and I'm on my knees begging 'God, show me magic!'

.But hi-ho silver lining out come the big dukes and off it flies, bloody-well soars in fact. Hallelujah, I was starting to look a bit of a tit stood here in my matching Ryan Adams pyjamas 'n' slippers. It's like the band have retired for the night and our hero tiptoes back into the studio like a Tennessee Wee Willy Winkie armed with a candle, a keg of JD and some divine inspiration - this is where the magic happens. Cobwebs is a revelation, a proper ballsy drum intro snowballing into great lyrics, great structure and great melody.

It's killer line - 'If I fall will you catch me, will you confuse my love for the cobwebs' - doesn't make much sense but feels ACE. It's the first flash of finger lickin' frickin' genius and feels like resurrection. It has the heartwarming drive of A Sort of Homecoming by U2 and I am coming home.The heavenly soul of Let Us Down Easy follows and glows like Memphis sunshine, with our Reverend preaching to the flock in a wavering prayer somewhere betwixt Aaron Neville and Jimmy Cliff. Years from now it's timeless melody will be an enormo hit for some lucky soul brother or sister.This trilogy of stunners finishes with Crossed Out Name – think Sinatra reimagining the Pumpkins Disarm.

It's blessed by a heavenly vocal (this album is a showcase for Adams the singer) which occasionally recalls both Adele's Hometown and Marley's Redemption Song. Regardless, it's bulletproof good. Faith somewhat restored then.Now it's morning and it's back to Clark Kent. Natural Ghost is fine, but there's no dancing on the rooftops. Ditto Sink Ships, lovely acoustics but just another day at the office.

Evergreen is much better, as perky and poetic as The Doors' Love Street, it had me hallucinating Barber Shop Quartets, Huckleberry Finn and Mississippi river boats. I really must see a psychiatrist.And then, like clockwork, the “Quiet! – Genius at Work” sign goes back on the door. Like Yesterday sees Adams sitting on the dock of the bay, sharing his sandwiches with Otis' ghost. “Oooh it doesn't feel like yesterday” he reminisces and it's impossible not to swoon. Bag it up as “Masterful Songwriter Evidence # 5476”. Fireworks this way!

This is why we watch the skies! Stop calls last orders with RA left on his Jack Jones at the Joanna, 'neath a haze of cigarette smoke and the moon lighting those 88 keys. All whiskey throat, torn and frayed, it's so delicate it takes your breath away. As for the bonus tracks, kill for the sweet Memory Lane but just maim for the baggy shuffle of Colour Of Pain. Cardinology isn't Adams' masterpiece; like its maker it's scruffy, goes home early, turns up late, messes about, shows off, but when it works it's Employee of The Month everytime. A contrary bugger undoubtedly, but again he adds a half-dozen jewels into an already overstuffed suitcase of classics that will live a helluva lot longer than I will.

As a record overbearingly promoted as a “Full Band” production I was convinced - in its plainer moments - that wonderboy was keeping his superpowers dipped for the sake of democracy. Or maybe that's just me and my blind faith. We need your helpRunning a website like The Digital Fix - especially one with over and an - costs lots of money and we need your help.

As advertising income for independent sites continues to contract we are looking at other ways of supporting the site hosting and paying for content.You can help us by using the links on The Digital Fix to buy your films, games and music and we ask that you try to avoid blocking our ads if you can. You can also help directly for just a few pennies per day via our Patreon - and you can even pay to have ads removed from the site entirely.