Getting to the Riverside Theater / Ryan Adams (now with Madison update)

[RyDogg66]

If he's going acoustic I gotta hear Dear Chicago.

[brettac1]

If he's going acoustic I gotta hear Dear Chicago.

 

QFT. That would be epic. I think the only way you're going to get "Everybody Knows" is acoustic, I don't think I've heard it electric. "Dear Chicago" is very good electric, so you could hear it either way. They haven't played it at all on this leg of the tour yet, it was basically a standard last year, and got played a decent amount on the early summer tour this year. It's probably a top-fiver for me as far as Ryan goes, though, so I'm with you on that.

 

There's so many songs I'd love - "Easy Plateau", "The End", I can go on. When the guy's written so many great songs, the possibilities are near endless. Best possible thing would be the one acoustic/one electric set thing that he talked about prior to the tour that hasn't really materialized yet. I'm totally down for an all-out marathon. The later I get home Saturday morning, the better, in my opinion.

 

But, we kind of just have to roll with it.

 

For your sake I really hope you get this (it's a pretty close approximation to last night's performance):

[chadomac]

I've been a huge RA fan for a few years now, and this was my first show. There were a ton of songs I didn't hear that I wanted to, but I suppose that's going to happen when he has so many songs. I hope to eventually hear these live:

 

Sweet Illusions

Meadowlake Street

Cherry Lane

Easy Plateau

Let It Ride

If I Am A Stranger

Dance All Night

Life Is Beautiful

Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.

Two Hearts

Firecracker

Gonna Make You Love Me

To Be Young

My Winding Wheel

Come Pick Me Up

Hard Way To Fall

The Hardest Part

The Shadowlands

1974

So Alive

Blue Sky Blues

Angelina

Hallelujah

 

Kinda disappointing I didn't hear ANY of those, but oh well. I thought I had a good shot with those Cold Roses songs, since it seemed like he did a lot of Cold Roses-heavy sets. Brett, why doesn't he do Heartbreaker songs? You seem to have seen him many times live. I would say I'm a pretty knowledgeable RA fan but I definitely don't know anything about his live shows.

[brettac1]

Well, I haven't seen him many times, but I collect the recordings of his shows, since he allows tapers to hook up to the soundboard. That's how I got to be a hardcore fan, really, and that's why there's so many Deadheads that have latched on, I think.

 

When it comes to "Heartbreaker" stuff, most of it doesn't work that great with the full band electric set-up. They have reworked "To Be Young" into a slowed down bluesy sounding song, and play "Winding Wheel" and "Shakedown on 9th Street" once in a while, but otherwise it's a no-go. I think another part of it is that he thinks those songs are kind of played out, since he's done so many albums since "Heartbreaker". In particular, "Come Pick Me Up" is virtually retired now. If you look on AnsweringBell.com, you can see how often he plays his songs. For instance, he has never played "Angelina" or "Gonna Make You Love Me", and the last time he played "Shadowlands" was in January of 2004, etc. It's a great resource for trivial stuff like that.

 

I definitely agree with you on "Cold Roses" stuff, the sets this tour have been really well-balanced between a bunch of the albums, though. For instance, last night had 3 from "Gold", "JCN", and "Cold Roses", 2 from "LIH", 2 non-Ryan songs, 4 from "Easy Tiger", and 1 from "29". That's a nice mix. The really heavy "Cold Roses" sets were moreso last year, the summer U.S. tour and fall Europe tour. If you're looking peak live Ryan Adams, to this point it gets no better than that period from July - October 2006.

 

If you want to listen to more of his live shows, go to one of these places:

 

Archive.org - You can stream and download (in both mp3 and lossless audio) several shows, and most of them from this year are up there in soundboard form in super quality

 

Ryan Adams Archive - For lossless audio quality torrents

 

Are you going to be in Madison, also, chadomac?

[chadomac]

No, my band is playing in Minneapolis that night, otherwise I would've went for sure. Hopefully he comes back again to support that EP that comes out in October.

[chadomac]

Where can I get an mp3 of "Freeway to the Canyon"? Where is that song from?

[brettac1]

That's from a Neal Casal solo album, "No Wish To Reminisce".

 

You can find a live version of it in several of the shows from archive.org or RAA in mp3 form. As far as a studio version, most likely it'd take some searching, but he's on eMusic if you're down with paying. They also do some others of his, "You Don't See Me Crying" and "Lost Satellite" once in a while.

[RyDogg66]

Looks like I wont be going to the show as 1.) my wife is too sick to go and 2.) because I knew it might be hard to get down there I put off buying tickets and the show is sold out.

 

A month earlier or a month later would have been much, much better timing. This blows.

[RyDogg66]

Brett - How do I d'load songs from the archive? Do I have to sign up?

[brettac1]

From Ryan Adams Archive, or archive.org?

 

With Ryan Adams Archive, you have to sign up (and use a BitTorrent client to download the shows). On Archive.org, you don't, you can download a zip of a full show in VBR mp3 if you want by just right clicking and doing the save as thing. You can also download in FLAC format, but individual files only that way as far as I know. Like so:

 

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1402/1448895391_88a1d5a994.jpg?v=0

 

Sorry to hear you won't be there tomorrow night. I'm hoping it's a great show. I'll be setlist-watching tonight's show in Minneapolis. And I'll definitely provide another recap of the show, and once the recording surfaces I'll put a link in this thread (that goes for the Riverside show, too).

 

RyDogg, have you (or anyone else) been to a show at the Barrymore before? I've heard a lot of good things about it, but what's the set-up like? I know all of their shows are GA, but is the place fully seated?

[RyDogg66]

Brett -

 

The last show at the Barrymore that I went to was September 2005, it was a John Butler Trio show. I've never been to a show there that was sold out, so I am not sure how that is going to change things. The shows Ive been to there have usually been people standing in the space between the first row and the stage, then people standing in the first section of the actual rows. People sitting in the balcony and the back of the main floor. It isn't very big so Im not surprised that it is sold out, but I'd be interested to hear how people watch the show (i.e. seated or standing) especially if it is an acoustic set.

[RyDogg66]

I cant believe Ryan covered "Down in a Hole" Is he a fan of Alice in Chains?

[brettac1]

I'm going to guess that Ryan's going to want people to sit, but that's just a guess with the way this tour has been going. I'm going to get there really early (maybe 3:00 or so), just trying to figure out if my friend and I should claim a couple seats front row center (if we're there before a lot of others) or just sit down by the stage and claim standing spots. I have no problem standing (I actually prefer it) but I would hate to stand there, then have to go in the balcony or something when the show starts. I think I'll e-mail the Barrymore and see what they have to say.

 

BTW, here's the MJS review of Tuesday's show... I'm not sure if it is positive or negative. He is correct that the lighting is (intentionally) awful, though.

 

Adams Sneaks Into the Shadows

 

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/news/img/sep07/ryan092607.jpg

[brettac1]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's a fan of AiC. He definitely does the version seriously and not as a joke or parody in anyway. I think he sort of relates to it, too.

 

He's a fan of a ton of stuff. Like, he wore a Celtic Frost shirt in Milwaukee.

[RyDogg66]

Hey brett, I just downloaded the 6-7-07 show, what are two or three great ones that I should check out? I heard 7/21/07 was spectacular and I'll be doing that one tonight. Any recs?

[brettac1]

You want shows from this year, or any year?

 

I'm a huge fan of summer and fall of '06, particularly 7/20/06 (Sayreville, NJ), 9/27/06 (Cambridge, UK), 8/3/06 (Indianapolis), and one of the all-time greats, 10/11/06 (Oslo). The 10/17 show also falls into the "classic" category - just amazing. Those are basically all electric shows. A unique show from that period is the 9/19/06 show, it's a really cool acoustic jam session type of thing in a really small venue. I think that tour was the best he's ever been to this point, the shows are really relaxed.

 

As far as '07 shows, to this point, you are very correct on 7/21. That was the first show back on electric guitar following Ryan's accident and wrist injury and it's a killer show. The other excellent ones so far are 6/29 (Somerville, MA), 7/11 (Louisville), and 9/16 (Northampton, MA). I like the 6/26 show at the Hiro Ballroom a lot, too. I listened to that one a couple of times today. The Milwaukee show is going to join those ranks, in part because of the acoustics of the Riverside are going to make the recording sound terrific.

 

By the way, there should be soundboard recordings of all those shows available.

 

If I were to say that three of those are absolute "must have", they would be Oslo, Ludwigshafen (10/17/06), and the Somerville '07 show. There's a lot of shows that can catch your ear and make you get hooked, though. I think the one that hooked me was 6/10/05.

 

And if you want to hear him blow up, just stream the 5/20/05 show. Not good.

[RyDogg66]

What's with English Girls Approx. He's only played it live once? Brett, any idea why?

[brettac1]

Maybe painful, or something... not sure. Love is Hell is kind of the under-represented album for him when it comes to live shows. He toured for like 6 months on the disaster that was Rock N Roll, though.

 

Tough to say. I was always a huge fan of "Chin Up, Cheer Up", and he went like two years between playing it three seperate times! I remember when we had a poll on the old .org about one song he should play and it won, and he played it at that 7/20/06 show. That's a part of why that's one of my faves.

[RyDogg66]

Yeah I am noticing a lot of released songs that I love he has rarely played. I know a few songs on LiH are about Carrie Hamilton, I can see how those might be hard to sing, and a few more about Beth Orton. Until I just spent some time checking out answeringbell.com's setlist archive I had no idea how rare some of these songs were. Too bad LiH is so under represented, it was the album that took me from being "into Ryan Adams" to being obsessed with Ryan Adams.

 

City Rain, City Streets (About Carrie)

Gonna Make You Love Me (Gold)

Cannonball Days

Avalanche

English Girls

My Blue Manhattan

Political Scientist

 

Think he'll ever make any of these "regulars" for a tour?

 

BTW - I am 88% through with downloading the 8/3/06 show from the archive. Do these shows always take so long to d'load? It's running on 2 hours. I have a wireless DSL connection.

[chadomac]

I saw Jimmy Eat World and Henry Rollins' spoken word both at the Barrymore, it's a very cool theater.

[brettac1]

BTW - I am 88% through with downloading the 8/3/06 show from the archive. Do these shows always take so long to d'load? It's running on 2 hours. I have a wireless DSL connection.

 

Sometimes. Are you downloading it in mp3? Then it probably should be quicker than that.

 

Out of that list, the only one I could see him playing more often is English Girls, probably. Unless he starts playing solo again, then some of the others have a chance. He wrote a lot of songs about Carrie Hamilton, a lot of Suicide Handbook is about her, too (and I am starting to think that is the collection to start a beginner on), and so is a lot of Heartbreaker.

[brettac1]

From the setlist thread on RAA tonight:

 

is this show still going on? i heard it was over around 10, there was a walk off.

 

Sweet!

[RyDogg66]

A walk off??? I assume he isnt speaking of the Prince Fielder variety... good luck tomorrow night.

[brettac1]

Well, he usually follows one of these with a long, killer show.

 

I will hope for the best. Like I said earlier, I am glad I spread the risk out over two shows. If he walks off tomorrow, I will have some pics as I hope to be right up front. The lighting is so low that it wasn't worth it to take any on Tuesday as I was at the back of the floor.

[bigredrobbo]

I saw Jimmy Eat World and Henry Rollins' spoken word both at the Barrymore, it's a very cool theater.

 

I had to read this twice before I realized you didn't actually mean a Jimmy Eat World spoken word show!