Ryan Adams Road Trip Part 1, Night 2

RA_BHM01

so the drive up to Birmingham was easy and i met up with CJ before the show out in front of the Alabama Theatre. it was a gorgeous day, and the theatre is one of those old downtown theatres with the ornate insides. i just took pictures of the outside on our way to the radio station sponsored party. the party ended up not being anything special. they had a couple of people from the radio station, but that was it. one of the DJs was there, and CJ is friends with her, and she said RA was supposed to do an interview Friday afternoon but canceled because he wanted to sleep and give his all for the show that night. that sounded pretty good to us! we threw darts, played foosball, and i drank PBR out of a can. it was kind of great, but nothing any different than a regular Friday afternoon at the bar.

after meeting up with other friends, and a great dinner, we made our way to the show. we showed up about half an hour before it started and settled into our seats. the show started the same as Thursday, with Beautiful Sorta. then after a few songs, CJ and i realized it was all the same songs. all the same order. it was very disappointing. of course, the band sounded great, and the songs were good, but really, the same songs? the same setlist? he canceled the radio interview that day so he could focus on the show to give us the exact same show as the night before? the only difference between the two was that the show ended with Easy Plateau and they cut Bartering Lines. the other difference was one song was moved up in the list. but yeah, virtually the same show. i don’t know if RA has ever done something like that. the show just seemed very vanilla and packaged. there wasn’t anything about the show to set it apart from Thursday. it was good, but not great, certainly not the peak of what the band’s capable of. Thursday had more banter, a better crowd (there were a lot of people loudly talking around where we were sitting), and an the extra song at the end.

after the show, we took a group picture outside on the street. there was a huge crowd out on the street not going anywhere. we all wondered why they weren’t going home. it was like they spilled out of the theatre and were waiting for something. it was weird. the police had blocked off the street from traffic, so i guess it was a normal occurrence.

now the waiting begins. CJ’s going to the first Nashville show next week, i’m going to Mobile, then we’re both going to the tour finale in ATL. over Panera this morning, we both have a fear that it’ll end up like those disappointing final Nickel Creek shows, but also hoping for an amazing 3 hour set that makes it worthy of a final (for now) show. time will tell.