Philzone.org - Philzone Phansite Community Discussion Board: Setlists and Reviews: Non GD Related Reviews: Archive: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals Riverside 9-25-07

Tue September 25, 2007
The Riverside
Milwaukee, WI
On around 8:40

1.Wild Flowers(long intro acoustic)
2.Games
3. Cold Roses
4.Beautiful Sorta
5.Peaceful Valley
6.Rescue Blues
7.Dear John
8.I taught myself how to grow old
9.When the stars go blue
10.Nightbirds
11. The Sun Also Sets
12. Off Boradway
13. Goodnight Rose
break
14. Brown Sugar (Piano Solo)
15. Please Do Not Let Me Go
16. A Kiss Before I Go
17. Freeway to the Canyon
18. I See Monsters

Off 10:25

All in all an excellent show. They are playing as an enemble really well. Sounds a bit like Step Insied this House era Lyle Lovette with better guitar solos. The mix is excellent as are the vocal harmonies and the sound guy is right on with the applications of reverb to the vocals at just the right moments. Highlights for me where Cold Roses and, even if it is overplayed, When Stars go Blue. Cold Roses just for the over all execution and When Stars go Blue for Ryan's solo. He wailed and seemed to almost be fighting the song as if to resist having to play his hit yet nailed it. If you are a fan this is a band firing on all cylinders. I am only a casual fan so I was entertained but not blown away.

Ryan's demeanor was pretty good, no real hissy fits or tantrums. The crowd was your standard drunk Milwaukee crowd with a few people that like to yell things, especially requests. At one point he layed down on the stage he was so sick of requests and one of the Cardinals said "We have a list of songs we are going to play." The band went into the song and he got up and played. After the solo Brown Sugar it seemed he was going to do another piano tune but left the piano after too much yelling. Earlier in the set he made some comments about his generation lacking patience, owning no copies of (reference to movie I didn't catch) and two copies of Dude where's my car and he isn't even as good as the earlier mentioned movie so what's the rush. There was also some wierd spoken word bit about the Cardinals in their natural environment with the band crawling aroud the stage.

My biggest complaint is every song is done at the same tempo and dynamically very similarly and there is too much lap steel. I feel the same way about the lap as I do the dobro. It is a wonderful instrument but enough is enough and it can make every song sound the same. Jery Douglas rocks the dobro but when yu go to a music festival and he sits in with everyone it gets tedious. Likewise with the lap at this show. The player was great but every song seemed to have the same sort of lap driven crescendo in it. The lap player played lead on one of the tunes where Ryan was on piano and nailed a lead.

Lights and sound both excellent.

Worth the effort

Thanks for the review.

BTW, It's Pedal Steel.... his name is Jon Graboff...and he's a bad man.

Thanks, you know I knew that given that it had the pedals hanging down on it and all, just a brain fart. None the less I still feel the same way, too much even with a great player

Word.

>Sounds a bit like Step Insied this House era Lyle Lovette with better guitar solos.

I'm impressed with the reference, though I don't profess to comprehend it.

>At one point he layed down on the stage he was so sick of requests
Even sober he's still an ass.

>too much lap steel
Is it still the guy who looks like Andy Dick? At Town Hall in NYC last year, he played lap steel on 90% of the songs, mostly unnecessarily, and was lost in the mix most of the night. You're right, it's overkill. Too much of a good thing. I generally feel the same way about Bela Fleck's banjo playing.

great review, thanks.