Review: Ryan Adams, February 21st 2005, Colston Hall, Bristol, UK

Ryan Adams, a fair few years ago, shuffled with honesty from the edges of the what is smugly termed Alt. Country with his band Whiskeytown and offered something a little more than twanged balladry – he offered the public a figure that for some time had been absent from intelligent music: the figure of the troubadour. For several years it seemed to sit on a stool with an acoustic guitar and sing songs about the human condition you needed to fill one criteria and that was to have a womb. And for all the quality of some of the finer female singer/songwriters, as a man myself, there is only a limited period of time you can listen to musings on how badly you, or the man standing next to you has denigrated femality with his ego, or if you haven’t directly, you most probably will at some point. That is fine. I’m sure I have done my fair share of denigrating in the past and I have no problem with being told off by a pretty girl with a guitar for it. But there is a world of grander cuteness I long for too. As a student of Dylan, Young and Cohen et al, it is a coarse refreshment to see someone like Adams take the stage. I have followed his songwriting since those days in Wiskeytown (a band that were often a little too country for my tastes) and, like most of the musically attentive world was forced to sit up and take notice with the release of Heartbreaker in 2000, an album of particular beauty and strength. Since then he has grown, squinted and sauntered through a music industry that is more and more faking a fawning over creative talent. Gold was an album of staggering mimicry where Adams showed off not only his fondest influences but also his ability to equal them all. Love is Hell, arguably his masterpiece, was the moment, for me at least, when he proved that he had his own voice. Each song stands alone as a moment of sonic unity, the peak that every artist works toward, when all of life’s influences converge to create something wholly new and bright. In addition to this he has produced albums, more than any of his contemporaries, that tirelessly rearrange the twelve chords to new and twisting delights.

In Bristol on this night I was hoping to see the closest thing to a songwriter who has been blessed by God who is part of my own generation. I have always bemoaned the fact that my father’s generation was embarrassed by its riches in this respect. And just as bemoaning of our lack. To put it bluntly, when Adams finally got around to playing, he was mesmerising. Some of the audience did not agree, but you have to question their motives for being there. He fumbled with lighters and mumbled into his mike, hunched over the piano, hugged onto his guitar, carefully pushed his hair out of his eyes. Clearly, he was neither sober nor straight, but his music suffered only from a couple of false starts. The strange result of this was an intimate party atmosphere with a soundtrack of whispered melancholy and wisecracks. Some grew tiresome of it. But with a talent of this magnitude, you have to sit there and do as your told, soak up the entirety of the experience, and respect the man you have in front of you. Those who heckled Dylan I’m sure either went on to attend Phil Collins concerts or are mortally ashamed of there silliness in those times. Either way has a devil of damnation in pursuit. On the other hand I could understand some unrest. Adams at times fumbled awkwardly in silence for several minutes, almost teasingly. There was obviously no need for it. But I have no problem with him playing the part. It was when he began to play and sing that I could see the reasons for the urging from the crowd, for it was meaningful, beautiful, and every one a performance of real worth. Renditions of his songs were fresh, full of the energy his banter was free of, and each note was struck as if it were the first run-through, after construction, of a new work, sat in his bedroom as a moody teenager under the watchful eye of Clash posters. Adams will go on to other great things, despite the moments off the rails musically on vinyl in the last few years. If nothing else, that was obvious tonight. It was floating through the air.