speed of dark

My brother Uncle T is a valued occasional contributor to Speed of Dark. For this post, he has supplied a review of Lucinda Williams in concert that he attended at the Granada Theater in Dallas, TX on March 10.

Uncle T happens to be a major Lucinda fan and has seen her more times that I can remember, in Dallas and at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. I'll be forever grateful that he gave me Car Wheels On a Gravel Road many Christmases ago, and that he also turned me on to the Heartless Bastards, who opened this show.

Since Uncle T reviewed the Heartless Bastards in January (see post) and the set list was similar, I'm going to jump right to the main attraction of the evening. I also have a disclaimer in that the album versions I have are without a doubt softer than the live versions he describes. Turning the narrative over to Uncle T now--

Lucinda Williams at the Granada Theater, Dallas, March 10, 2007

As I entered the venue, Erika Wennerstrom (of Heartless Bastards) was hanging out at the merchandise table. I went over and briefly spoke with her, telling her how much I enjoyed their January show at Sons of Herman Hall. She was in a good mood and said they were having a great time touring with Lucinda. Out back after the concert I ran into drummer Kevin Vaughn, who recognized me from the previous two concerts where I'd seen them.

The granada theater is a legendary movie theater and lower Greenville Avenue fixture in Dallas, renovated for concerts several years ago and sponsored by CD World. It’s got good acoustics and is a nice place to see a show. There was a big crowd, but I was able to have a pretty good view close to the stage throughout the night.


This was the fourth stop of the tour promoting Lucinda's latest CD West, released several weeks ago. I was surprised that her rhythm section (bass and drummer) had changed since the last time I saw her. I really thought her last band, the quartet, was an excellent ensemble.

I’d seen Don Heffinton play drums for her before at the first three Lucinda concerts I’d attended. Doug Pettybone did some brilliant guitar tonight, doing lots of extended and wild soloing. He always turns in a good performance, but tonight he was on fire once they started getting into the more electric material. And Lucinda was in very good spirits. They didn’t seem to have their set list down to a fine art, and often Lucinda went around to the band members telling them the next number to be played.

My only complaint was that they didn’t play many songs from her new CD, which I really like (most of it anyway). But what they did play sounded very good. She tended to play the more hopeful songs that are toward the end of the CD, and didn’t play any of the first eight songs on it. Maybe she didn’t want to play them because they cover emotional areas of her life that she no longer wants to dwell on. But she did defend these new songs by saying they weren’t “dark”, as some music critics had stated.

Set list (in this general order) and comments:

1. Ventura: They started off with a very quiet version of this, with Lucinda on acoustic guitar and Doug on pedal steel. It seemed a pretty subtle way to start out a concert to me, so I figured this would be a mellow night of quiet music based on her new CD. Thankfully, I was wrong.

2. Fruits of My Labor: This was another quiet song, but here Lucinda started doing some great singing on this. In fact, she sang very well throughout the set.

3. Drunken Angel: She introduced this song written about her old friend, Austin songwriter Blaze Foley. The volume of the band started picking up at this point, with Doug playing lead guitar and harmonica.

4. Lake Charles: She introduced this song, written about her old Louisiana boyfriend named Clyde. She said they’d ride down Interstate 10 in southern Louisiana and eat boudouin, the Cajun sausage. The crowd loved this one, as they always do in Texas.

5. West: This was the first song they did off the new CD; the title cut. This was a very good quiet number.

6. Out of Touch: Doug started this song from Essence off with some great funky electric guitar playing. This was the band’s first hard rocking effort.

7. Right In Time: They did a great job on this Car Wheels song.

8. Words: A song off the new CD, which was great in concert. Doug did some amazing guitar soloing on this. He seemed to switch electric guitars almost every other song, keeping his guitar tech very busy.

9. Righteously: As the song started, Lucinda wanted to stop it because she botched the lyrics. But it didn’t really matter, and the band continued to play the song anyway since they were into a nice groove. Doug caught on and simply lengthened the intro, allowing Lucinda to repeat the opening verse again without stopping the song’s momentum. Doug played some amazing guitar soloing on this, really going wild at the end.

10. Essence: They did a really good version of this tonight too.

11. Rescue: This was excellent in concert, and is one of my favorites off the new CD. Really great song, I think.

12. Wrap My Head Around That: This is another one of her “rap” type songs, which she disavowed when she introduced this song (“it’s not rap”). This is my least-favorite song on the new CD, but in concert it works well because of its bass-heavy rhythm.

13. Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings: This is a Stonesy rocker from World Without Tears.

14. Joy: Nice version of this one, with Doug laying down some funky guitar throughout.

15. Get Right With God: They ended the set with a nice up-beat version of this song, with Doug playing some mean slide guitar. This was the final song of the main set. However, they came back for an encore after about five minutes with the crowd clapping for more.

Encore:

Overtime: They did a nice mellow version of this song. Great.

Lowlands: This was a new slower song that she said might be on her new CD. She introduced the name of the song several times, so I’m pretty sure she said “Lowlands” saying something about Jack Kerouac inspiring the title, though none of the lyrics mention the word. It was a pretty good song; with lyrics much more positive and upbeat than anything on the moody West.

Still I Long For Your Kiss: She did this Car Wheels song next, and sang it in good form. The band also played it well.

Come To Me: This is a Howlin’ Wolf cover I’d see her do this a couple of times in concert before. Lucinda sings it in a very seductive manner, and Doug did some very fine and funky blues guitar.

All in all, a very good show and up to par with her other performances I have seen.


Heartless Bastards will appear again with Lucinda tomorrow night, March 27, at Hart Theatre in Albany, New York

See Lucinda Williams' full tour schedule on her myspace page
Official website
Buy: amazon, itunes, sonic boom records