March 9 2009: Lucinda Williams, Buick 6 - Calvin Theatre, Northampton MA
Me and Caitlin got fourth row seats the day before and went to see one of our collectively favorite musicians play.
The openers were fucking horrendous, though the crowd was pretty into them. Imagine all the worst parts of Pink Floyd, whoever your least-favorite band is, and a jackhammer. Now combine all three. That's them. Spot on, talented musicians playing instrumental music to kill yourself to. Fucking awful.
Fortunately the openers pulled it together long enough to be Lucinda's backing band, and to do it quite well. She opened with some old tunes I didn't know, and closed with pretty much the same string of songs she closed with when I saw her in September, and it was great. "I Lost It" and "Metal Firecracker" were both highlights. The new stuff was great, especially "Real Love" and "Little Rock Star," both played back to back. And "Little Rock Star" didn't have that awful backing vocal line during the chorus which allowed the chords to ring through and turns out to be the only thing holding back the recorded take. I loved that song when I heard it live first, and couldn't figure out why I would have loved something like that once I heard the record. Now I know.
The closing few numbers included "Essence," "Joy," "Honey Bee," "Come On" and "Righteously." Nothing wrong with that.
And the encore was all covers, including Skip James' "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," which it turns out is waaaaaay better when an actual blues band plays it than when Built to Spill plays it. And "Long Way to the Top," which is just plain fun to hear Lucinda play.
We went home happy.
The openers were fucking horrendous, though the crowd was pretty into them. Imagine all the worst parts of Pink Floyd, whoever your least-favorite band is, and a jackhammer. Now combine all three. That's them. Spot on, talented musicians playing instrumental music to kill yourself to. Fucking awful.
Fortunately the openers pulled it together long enough to be Lucinda's backing band, and to do it quite well. She opened with some old tunes I didn't know, and closed with pretty much the same string of songs she closed with when I saw her in September, and it was great. "I Lost It" and "Metal Firecracker" were both highlights. The new stuff was great, especially "Real Love" and "Little Rock Star," both played back to back. And "Little Rock Star" didn't have that awful backing vocal line during the chorus which allowed the chords to ring through and turns out to be the only thing holding back the recorded take. I loved that song when I heard it live first, and couldn't figure out why I would have loved something like that once I heard the record. Now I know.
The closing few numbers included "Essence," "Joy," "Honey Bee," "Come On" and "Righteously." Nothing wrong with that.
And the encore was all covers, including Skip James' "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," which it turns out is waaaaaay better when an actual blues band plays it than when Built to Spill plays it. And "Long Way to the Top," which is just plain fun to hear Lucinda play.
We went home happy.
posted by Peter Sohriakoff | 3:50 AM
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