Bringing the Drama

it rained here, pretty much all day. work wasn’t that great. BO Guy drama, realizing i was doing something the hard way only to realize later i could have been using a short cut, etc. plus, i took the following picture one year ago today. yeah.

actually, it wasn’t that bad. i went to the gym after work, even though it was raining and i wanted to just go home and worked out for the first time in at least two weeks. it was tough, but i didn’t see CGG or anything. i made it home in time to watch the basketball games and ended the evening buying some usb powered siren lights from woot. word.

Ryan Adams Road Trip Part 2, Night 1

so after the drama of Wednesday was dealt with and Chad heroically stepped up to valiantly sit with me in the 5th row, the group going to the Mobile show met up at my house and left about 6:15. the plan initially was to get there in time to hit a sports bar and watch the Clemson game, but plans changed and it was just as well since Clemson wrecked my bracket and broke my heart. i didn’t see any of the game, but got score updates off of Chad’s phone. i was just in a fog between the Wednesday drama, the tension of the day at work, and then the game. i needed something to take my mind off it, and of course seeing RA live would work.

we got there much later than we thought, and ended up just going into the venue. no harrowing adventures of timing like the last time in Mobile or anything. Chad did bring his awesome camera, but foolishly decided to size things up before the show started. i say foolishly because of what happened next. a couple of security guys came over and told him he wouldn’t be able to take pictures during the show with such a great camera, and then tried to say something funny that wasn’t. more on them later. since we were so close i did snap some good pictures (like above), so things worked out on the photography front okay.

the lights go down, the show starts, and already the show is different from the previous two shows i had been to on this tour because the opener was I See Monsters. they did quite a few songs off Cardinology, which was cool, cause i think those songs sound better live than they do on the album. especially Born Into A Light, which was played last Thursday. the setlist was pretty vanilla though, again, which i expected, but i did get to hear a song i had never heard live before for the first time.

the first time i heard the song Evergreen, was from a 15 sec cell phone video my fellow RA super fan friend Marika sent me from a show at the Fillmore in SF (link to whole song from that show). that show saw the live debut of several new songs from Cardinology, which includes Evergreen. hearing it live for the first time made me think of when i got that cell phone video at 1 am, and how excited i was to hear a new song played live, even if it was only 15 seconds. the song sounded great in Mobile.

i thought they had really gotten into a groove by the time they played Evergreen. they had kicked out Mockingbird, Cold Roses (i love that song live), Shakedown, A Kiss Before I Go, and Peaceful Valley right in a row before playing Evergreen. i thought the feel had finally come around and they were locked in. the first part of the show i thought they were just kind of going through the motions, but when i thought they hit the groove, i thought they’d play a while. unfortunately i was wrong, because right after Evergreen they played Magick and the show was over. just like that. the house lights came up about 10:15. they had played straight through, which didn’t make it feel like a short show. and really, 23 songs (20 if you don’t count the Neal Casal songs) was fine. it had the cool moments like Jon Graboff’s pedal steel on Shakedown, so i can’t say i was disappointed. it didn’t feel packaged like Birmingham either, but it did feel like RA was just singing the songs and playing the music, hoping to get done; at least up until that string of songs i mentioned. i texted a couple of friends on the way out and told them i was not going in with many expectations for the ATL ‘final’ show.

a side note about the security guys, while they wanted to hassle Chad at the beginning of the show about his camera, they didn’t seem too interested in a girl throwing stuff on stage at RA. i forget when during the show it was, but this girl walks up the left aisle and threw what i thought were crumpled pieces of paper at RA, and then walked back to wherever she was sitting. the band didn’t stop or anything, but still. a couple of songs later the girl walks up the left aisle again and throws another crumpled piece of paper at RA. she made it behind his on stage monitors this time, which she exuberantly celebrated. she made it back to a seat, and then security said something to her. why didn’t they kick her ass out the first time it happened? i don’t know if she got kicked out, and i read later that she was throwing roses, but it could have been anything, and i thought security totally dropped the ball.

Ryan Adams Road Trip 2009 Part 1, Night 3

early last week CJ told me about this show that was going to be on Saturday for a band called Blitzen Trapper. i had never heard of them, but checked them out on youtube and thought they sounded good. the tickets were $10, so we got tickets right before the show sold out and went. i don’t know if it’s because i’m older now or having been to too many GA shows, but i don’t really enjoy standing in a room for 45 minutes for a show to start. the thing about going to see RA, the shows are seated, and you really don’t have to stand up at all, and i like having the option and it is spoiling me. back to BT though, apparently the venue is known for having their shows start an hour late, which happened Saturday night. the show was supposed to start at 9 but didn’t really start till 10. the cool thing about waiting though was they had a screen in front of the stage acting as a curtain i guess, and they were projecting a movie onto it. the movie they selected was Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. i looked it up after i got home to get the low down on the film. it was a good movie, esp considering we were a captive audience.

the opening band was good, but after the first couple of songs, all the songs sounded the same. after they were done, the screen came down again. this time the dvd got set on an interview with Pete Townshend. we had been standing there for a while, and it was hot, and we were tired, and i looked at CJ and told her “now i want to punch Pete Townshend in the head….but it’s not really his fault!”

finally BT came on about 11. they sounded good. i loved how the drummer had a Civil War beard. it was awesome. they put on a good show, but about midnight, CJ and i decided it was good enough and we said our goodbyes and left. it felt so good to get in the car. the hassle/disappointment ratio was going into the danger zone the longer we stood in the super crowded room with it being hot too. we left at a good time. i bought an EP on the way out. i recommend BT, they were worth the money and the time.

Ryan Adams Road Trip Part 1, Night 2

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.

Ryan Adams Road Trip 2009 Part 1, Night 1

yesterday at work was kind of torture. last night was the big RA show in Baton Rouge, and i was nervous. you know when you really like something, and you want other people to like it? that’s how i am. i get nervous going to RA shows with people who are going for their first time, cause i’m hoping they like the show and he doesn’t flip out, so they don’t think i’m crazy for liking him. after a quick dinner at quizno’s, we were off for Red Stick. we met up with my friend Jacob and a couple of his friends downtown and hit a bar called Happy’s. i drank PBR out of a goblet. that was kind of cool. we left for the show about 8:25 and sat down in our seats a few seconds before the band came on stage. the timing could not have been better.

they led off with Beautiful Sorta. it was great. the crowd seemed into it from the start. they tore through Born Into A Light and Cold Roses and were on fire. i really think the Cardinology songs are better live, because on the record they just don’t seem to carry over the punch from the live shows. that might be just me. they played Come Pick Me Up and Wonderwall pretty early on, and they were great, but like i had told my friend David a couple of weeks ago, it wasn’t as special now that they’re playing those songs at every show. when we saw them in Dallas in ’07, it was another story. obviously both songs are still great to hear at a show, esp when RA uses the harmonica on CPMU, but i wish he’d use the acoustic again.

the 2nd half of the main set was where i think things started to take off. both Goodnight Rose and I See Monsters were fantastic, and one after another. i had forgotten how intense ISM can get. the highlights of the show were Rip Off and Magick. i had never seen either of those songs performed live before, and Rip Off is one of my favorites. i love the piano songs. Magick was a lot of fun. plus, i don’t know what it is, but i love Sink Ships. maybe it was because i first heard it at the Tuscaloosa show last year, but i think it’s great. the encore was three songs and they finished with a GREAT version of Bartering Lines. it is so rock and roll how they do it live.

after the show, we walked out and i went to get stickers. my original Cold Roses sticker that i got at my first show in 2005 is now fading really bad, so i needed a replacement. on my way back from the merch table back to where my friends were, this guy Sam stops me and asks me if i keep a blog. apparently he was googling for pictures from the Punch Brothers show in BR, and found my blog from the entry i did talking about that. we talked PB and RA, then went our separate ways. i am a rock star.

now the lowlights….some girl was sitting in front of me trying to take pictures, but she didn’t turn the flash off. so probably after about 10 shots, she decided to go to video. she videoed what seemed like 15 songs with her digital camera. i doubt they’ll turn out any good cause she didn’t really have her camera above people’s heads. i didn’t really like the theatre all that much. the seats had this kind of velvet lining on them, and it smelled like people used to be able to smoke in there. it was kind of disappointing, cause i thought it was going to be pretty nice. maybe they should change out the seat coverings.

Birmingham tonight!

so the other day it was revealed that Ryan Adams and Mandy Moore are engaged. i was emailed by my friend CJ on Wednesday and heard it first from her. I’m not really surprised considering they’ve dated before, and i saw her in pictures from Australia that he posted on his blog. i think it’s great. the following is a text conversation i had yesterday about it.

Jacob: “CNN.com is reporting that Ryan Adams and Mandy Moore are engaged”
Me: “Yeah, gossip places had it yesterday. CNN must read pitchfork who read gossip blogs. I am jealous of him”
Jacob: “I’m jealous of her”
Me: “I don’t think I could marry a vegetarian”
Jacob: “Oh. Yeah, that’s a dealbreaker”

also yesterday it was announced that RA would be playing an acoustic show in ATL in March. i discussed it with a friend, but ultimately decided the hassle/disappointment ratio would probably not be in our favor. what is the hassle/disappointment ratio? it was something i came up with yesterday. i go to a lot of concerts, right? i usually measure the worth of going by what day the show’s on, what time does it start, have i seen the band before, was the show any good, etc. all these factors usually are weighed against how much i like the band. yesterday though i came up with a new theory. if the amount of hassle is equal to the amount of disappointment, then the show was not worth going to see. if there’s hardly any hassle, then if the show sucks it’s no big deal. if there’s a lot of hassle but the show is legendary, then that’s okay too. the last two Nickel Creek shows in Nashville that i went to weren’t that much of a hassle, cause i love Nashville and i’ll use any excuse to go, but the shows were huge disappointments. i’m kind of glad i still went, but i don’t rank the two Nashville shows in my top 5 NC shows ever. let’s just say i’d be okay had i not been there. the weekend in Nashville was super fun though. back to the RA acoustic show…..the hassle of going would be driving to ATL from Birmingham (i’m going to be there already for the RA show on 3/6), then going to the show, leaving late going back to Birmingham, and missing a day of work (since the show is on Sunday). that’s a lot of hassle for a show that will probably be shorter than a regular RA show. the only appeal would be that it’s acoustic, and the setlist would probably be very different. it’s theoretical though, because the band hasn’t played an acoustic show in a while. however, all these factors add up to the disappointment needing to be almost zero for the hassle to cancel out. and as much as i think the disappointment would be almost zero, i can’t help but remember thinking the same thing before i flew up to Nashville in November 2007. i’m usually a person who does things for the experience than not doing them, but the past month or so i’ve been really into trying to save money and change my spending habits. 4 RA shows is going to have to be it for me.

before you think i’m crazy though, i can explain. i got free tickets to the ATL show, so i’m going to that. i got tickets for Birmingham because i wanted to go to more than one show, and go with a fellow super fan. after i already had tickets for those shows, Mobile was scheduled a week later. i bought tickets for that, then like three weeks later Baton Rouge got scheduled, so i got tickets for that. the hassle for Baton Rouge and Mobile is almost nothing, and both Birmingham and ATL are on Fridays where i don’t have work so i don’t have to take vacation days to go to any of these shows. so as much as i’d want to see the acoustic show, it just won’t work.

so here i am crafting a post to closeout the year with pictures from highlighted days when my sister calls me and says she found me some Kanye glasses. this is the same sister who on the ride to go see FF5 a couple of weeks ago told me she thinks Kanye is a genius. GENIUS! i told her then that if i could find glasses like this that i would get them. i also want a pair of Elton John glasses, but those are very hard to find. the closest i got was a pair i saw in the Newcastle, UK airport, but we were rushing to catch a plane and i didn’t think to buy them. anyway, so my sister comes by the house this afternoon to drop off the glasses. they are fabulous, and i’m surprised you can actually see pretty well out of them. i played Lego Star Wars with them on, and was able to free R2D2 and C-3PO from their hooded goblin bondage.

so here’s the picture. i am off to a NYE party where there will be fireworks and at least one potato gun. goodbye 2008!

in 2006, i saw Family Force 5 three different times. all three shows were awesome. they’re kind of a love/hate band i think for some people. you either think they’re awesome and love everything, or you think they’re dumb. i love them. i got my sister hooked by lending her a copy of the first cd and taking her to see them that summer. i hadn’t seen them since October 2006 until Sunday. they did come through to NOLA one night in April, but i was in Charleston. if you hate FF5 or something, then you might want to skip to the last paragraph.

i saw they were going to be playing with TobyMac and Relient K in nearby Mobile on Sunday, and it worked out my sister and i could go. the plan was to show up right before showtime and buy tickets off a desperate youth leader, but that backfired when we showed up 15 minutes late. i figured since there was some rapper guy also on the bill, he’d be going first. unfortunately, we heard FF5 playing as we walked in. we walked into the arena part and i yelled “THIS IS SO AWESOME!” as they were playing D-I-E-4-Y-O-U. we walked over to some seats and watched the rest of the show. unfortunately the way the show was set up, they didn’t get very long to play.

apparently Nadaddy is playing a new instrument called the Family Force 5000! what a great name! it was like window panes that he punched and as he hit each ‘pane’, they lit up. (this picture i took you can see it pretty good) it’s a drum machine laid out like that. it was amazing! i got the low down on what the instrument is from a music insider i know. Soul Glow had the hulk fists and everything! he started using those after the last time i saw them, so it was the first time i saw them live. i so wanted a hulk fist bump! i was jealous of the people down front, i’d have been pushing kids aside for one!

when they left the stage, both me and my sister were bummed that we each paid $30 for an abbreviated short set. however, it had been so long since we had seen FF5, and the show was fun anyway. i did want to stay and see Relient K though, so waited around for them to play. we walked around before they came on stage and took pictures in front of the banner FF5 would sit under when they did their meet and greets.

i don’t even know what that thing is on the banner, maybe it’s a dance monster. i’m not sure if my parents would want to use this picture for a Christmas card though.

i thought Relient K was good. i only have one of their albums, but i know they’ve been around a long time, and i thought they got cheated only playing about 35 minutes. i get that the show is going to be mostly kids and youth groups, and maybe the show should end early so they can all get home, but people are showing up to see a show, not snippets. after Relient K finished, my sister said she didn’t want to wait around for Toby Mac. i don’t know any of his stuff, so it didn’t really matter to me, i had seen the two bands i wanted to see.

on the way home we stopped off for dinner at a truck stop Subway. (the building with the black roof) i came to the road that i thought would take us to the side of the building so i could park. there were no signs, so i turned down the road. apparently it was the 18 wheeler exit road, so we’re traveling the wrong way up a one way street. just as i realized this, a truck started to make his way to the road. thankfully he saw us and let us go before he turned, or i’d have been having to hop a curb or something.

this adventure brought my weekend to a close.

Ryan Adams road trip 2008 Night 2, 10/17/2008

so the morning of the ATL show, i drove up to Birmingham to meet up with my friend Susan and then drive to ATL. in order to waste time, i ate at a Subway near her house (have y’all tried the chicken pizzalorio [pizaloria, pizzaiola?] yet? it’s a $5 foot long and worth every penny). then i sat in my car, read my Bible, sent texts, then called someone to gush about the show the previous night. i could not stop thinking about the new songs. Susan called me to let me know she finally got home, i met her at the house, and we left, with what we thought was PLENTY of time to get to Atlanta. little did we know how things would change.

i drove her car so that she could catch up on sleep, and everything’s going fine. traffic is moving well, i was on my way to another Ryan Adams show, what could go wrong? i’ll tell you what could go wrong! traffic came to a stand still somewhere around Anniston, and for the next hour, we were basically stopped. STOPPED! i must say on my drive from home up to Tuscaloosa the previous day i saw two 18 wheeler wrecks, one in which the truck had flipped off into the trees in the median, and another where the truck had turned over spilling what looked to be bags of rice. both of these accidents were on a sunny day, last Friday was kind of dreary. i figured with the traffic stopped, there must be something major. after an hour, we finally got moving, and the way the interstate was set up, the three lanes merged to two for construction. normally this is not a major deal until there is an older man in a white minivan who is stalled in the right lane. STALLED IN THE RIGHT LANE IN A CONSTRUCTION AREA! this man appeared to not know the rules of trying to move your car off of the roadway when we passed. i blew the horn at him. Susan called the stalled vehicle in to the highway patrol so they could maybe GET HIM OFF THE ROAD! as we went further down the road we saw a massive accident of i think two 18 wheelers which was pulled off into the median. the traffic going the other way was at a crawl, but eastbound I-20 was moving smoothly. we deserved it!

because of the traffic mishap, we had to skip stopping at Jeff and Adriene’s and went straight to the venue. we stopped for Chick-Fil-A at the same exit we were getting off at, and got to the parking lot at 8:20 (or something like that). we made our way inside, and i stopped at the merch booth to get my poster. while in line i was able to weigh in on a conversation about the new songs with the people in front of me. i thought they were cool, until the couple in front of me decided to buy 2 shirts, and have to check sizes on each, and then kind of also think about getting a poster, but then not, then rethink if one of the shirts they got was the right size OMG JUST BUY YOUR STUFF AND MOVE! it was 8:32 by this point, i was trying to play it cool and not freak out, but these people, seriously were pushing on my nerves. the guy behind me had been making comments to me about if i was going to be able to buy my stuff and move ASAP when i got to the front, and i told him i was ready. i also bought a shirt, and i knew the size when i got to the front. also, the guy asked me if i was on the Archive, which i told him i was. we exchanged user names, but i honestly forgot his. his g/f (i guess?) kind of rolled her eyes at us. i thought meeting people from the internet was not considered weird anymore? i made my way to my seat with about a minute to spare.

the show started and the band sounded spectacular. the venue was an open air ampitheatre which seemed to have been built recently, so the acoustics were great.

they started with Born Into A Light and kept rolling with a fantastic Cobwebs. when i first had heard that song, i didn’t really know what to think, but after seeing it live i really started to love it. the show kept building though, Bartering Lines was insane. Wonderwall was AMAZING! i was a little distracted in Tuscaloosa for this song, because ‘that’ girl got up twice DURING the song, but in ATL, all the people around me were staying in their seats. it was awesome. after they did Off Broadway, Ryan said something about his voice going out, and he was sorry, but they were going to do their best. this was the last show of the US headlining tour, i was hoping they were going to play extra long, so the voice thing didn’t sound too good. the weird thing was, then they played The Sun Also Sets, which is a hard song to sing the way he does live. i didn’t understand, but i appreciated the effort to give us the full experience. between songs Ryan mentioned the voice thing, which after being repeated, i started to feel the show was going to be cut short. after Shakedown, he finally apologized for what seemed like the 20th time, and said he felt humiliated, but he was not going to be able to go on. i felt bad for him, because he kept apologizing, and his posture was just one of defeat. when he said that was it, the band kind of looked at him puzzled, and reluctantly followed his lead and left the stage.

Susan and i figured maybe he’d go drink some tea with honey, or the band would convince him to come back on and sing quieter songs that wouldn’t be so taxing on his voice. he had sung the regular songs without changing the setlist in spite of his voice issues, which made me wonder why he did that. people started booing. and then it got louder. we were going to wait until they started taking everything apart though, which they hadn’t yet. i figure it was about 10 minutes or so before the houselights came on. the roses on the backdrop were still lit though, and we figured once they turned those off that would be the end for real. the people booing kept saying things like they wanted a refund, or that they should have known this would happen. i was more sad about what could have happened than what should have happened. they had sounded so great, i was disappointed for it to end like that. about 15 minutes after the band left the stage, they turned the roses off, which signaled our time to leave.

Ryan Adams road trip 2008 Night 1, 10/16/2008

i left last Thursday for Tuscaloosa and arrived in time to eat dinner with two of the people i had had lunch with in Birmingham last month. the restaurant was taking FOREVER with our food, but we were able to scarf down our food and make it to the show with about 7 minutes to spare. none of us had been to the theatre before, so we made our way through the throng of people who were trying to get that last mixed drink or can of beer (they had CANS of beer) before the lights went down. i bought my poster for the night and made my way down to the 2nd row.

the first set was good, and i really liked the new songs, especially Born Into A Light and Sink Ships. my friend David had gone to the Dallas show, and told me how much he liked Stop, but when they played it i didn’t really like it that much. the organ they used sounded like a baseball organ, and i couldn’t hear the lyrics very well. upon hearing the studio version (legally!) i have changed my opinion. it’s so heartwrenching! btw, i thought the steel guitar during Shakedown was brilliant.

the people next to me did not show up until the 3rd or 4th song. how does that happen? if you have 1st or 2nd row for a show, why would you show up that late? it was a guy and a girl, and the girl kept climbing over me to go get another drink, and when she’d come back, she’d try to pretend fall on her b/f(?), but she also kept falling on me. i didn’t get it, but i guess after the 6th time, she apologized, as if at that point an apology meant anything. i didn’t ask them about their tickets, and once everyone stood up and moved up front for the 2nd half, they were gone.

about the moving up, when the band came out for the 2nd set, Ryan said something like if it was okay with security, everyone should come up to the front and fill in the space between the front row and the stage (which was probably 10 feet). of course as soon as he said that, everyone did, i just moved further towards the middle of the 2nd row. i’m kind of over the standing amongst a large group of people if i don’t have to.

one of the highlights of the 2nd set was Meadowlake Street. the way it started off so slow and soft and then crested with the entire band was amazing. they also played Note To Self, which was one of my favorites off of Rocknroll, and i loved hearing it live. Cold Roses also was great, esp when Ryan hit his guitar pedal for the last solo. they ended with Crossed Out Name and that was it, two and a half (roughly) hours later. seriously great stuff.

you can listen to any and all of the Tuscaloosa show here.