Ryan Adams & The Cardinals– Shepherds Bush Empire
Touring in support of his three 2005 releases: ‘29’, ‘Jacksonville City Lights’ and ‘Cold Roses’ – it was the latter two band-orientated records that got the lions-share of the set-list tonight, with a couple of older songs, snatches of wacky covers, and some new songs included as well.
Cardinals guitarist Neal Casal opened things up with a 45 minute acoustic set that reminded me he was a bonda fide solo artist (with over a dozen albums to his credit) before hooking up with Ryan Adams. The first half of his set was enjoyable solo acoustic stuff – but things really picked up for the second half when he was joined on drums and harmony vocals by Dj Reggie (a poorly disguised Ryan Adams –playing in almost complete darkness with a hoodie pulled up over his head – yet still clearly recognizable the second he sang harmonies).
About 20 minutes later the 5 piece Cardinals took the stage to the strains of AC-DCs “Highway To Hell”. Kicking off with the mid-tempo country lilt of “A Kiss Before I Go” seemed to surprise the crowd a little – because with the prominent peddle steel it is a very country sounding song – but it wasn’t long before the band were jamming their way through more rock orientated songs like “Magnolia Mountain” and a bluesy-shuffle take on “To Be Young” from Ryan’s still unparalleled debut ‘Heartbreaker’.
One odd moment occurred mid-set when, just as they launched into “Games”, the band all donned Ninja masks (actually peddle steel player Jon Graboff had on a wrestling mask and bass-player Chris Feinstein looked like he was wearing a bee-keepers helmet) which were slowly dis-guarded, with no explanation, over the course of the next few songs.
My one criticism of the night is The Cardinals seem to have morphed themselves into a modern day version of The Grateful Dead – with every song seeming to evolving into an 8 minute plus jam opus. This was fine for The Dead who (with the possibly exception of ‘American Beauty’) weren’t really know for tight well crafted songs – but Ryan Adams is known as a songwriter so stretching “What Sin” into a nearly 10 minute epic didn’t really add any value for me – and in fact became kinda boring after a while.
While I’m in nag mode - over the last few tours Ryan has also developed this tendency to blend songs into one another, which can be quite effective when he wants to acknowledge a linage between two songs or include a snatch of an appropriate cover mid-song – but now it seems to be done out of boredom with many unrelated songs colliding into each other like a musical freeway pile-up. Like the fanastic “Battering Lines” which tonight was sandwiched in between versus of a new jam-orientated song which I think might be called “Egyptology”. That said – the same trick did work quite effectively towards the end of the show with a segment of Billy Ocean’s “Caribbean Queen” included in a closing jam that also included Sonic Youth’s “Express Way to Yr. Skull”.
Other highlights tonight included the ‘Cold Roses’ trilogy of “Beautiful Sorta”, title track, and “Easy Plateau”. A full band take of “Dear Chicago” which reminded me of the original ‘Gold’ out-take version, more so than the pale ‘Demolition’ released take. A short and catchy, almost power-pop, new song “Party Clown”, and a show closing “I See Monsters” from ‘Love Is Hell’ – that started slow but built into a rocking climax.
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