Ryan Adams - 3/16/02 - Columbus, OH - Promowest Pavilion Mar 25 '04 (Updated Jul 08 '04)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music The Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1 by The Prodigy From $11 Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 The Bottom Line I think Ryan was on drugs this night. Short concert. Cocky attitude. It's too bad I had a 6.5 hour trip home that night. "You can't get there by yourself" -Bruce Springsteen Sometimes there are subtle differences between what is good and is not good. You can be in a relationship with a girl or guy for years and having the time of your life, but it ends badly and every memory from those years is tarnished and the memories turn bad. This is the same feeling I had at Ryan Adams' concert in Columbus, OH (March 16, 2002). After making us wait until after 10:30 at night Ryan came out and played for about an hour. He left and came back for maybe 20 minutes. That’s right, an hour and twenty-minute set. It was a great hour and twenty minutes, but what tarnished this concert was Ryan’s ego-centrical attitude. I don’t know if he didn’t like the way the crowd looked, or if he just planned to get out of there quick that night, but either way, this concert had that “tarnished” feeling. I’ve been thinking since the concert about what exactly it was about him that was so bothersome, because basically all celebrities have a big head to them. I think I have figured it out. A good musician, although he may be stuck on himself, realizes that he must work for the crowd’s affection, he has to earn it. Ryan seemed to feel like he deserved the crowd’s affection. Give me a Bruce Springsteen or an Adam Duritz who work for the crowd’s cheers, not an arrogant little guy who won’t play if he doesn’t like the way the crowd is treating him. Ryan Adams is a great musician, you can't deny that. He has a great ability to write songs and maybe an even greater ability in performing them. I loved watching him on stage. He didn’t care about his country labels, he just played all out hard rock and roll all night (…the whole hour). He was eccentric and expressive the whole time. He was unique, engaging and looked like he was having fun. I felt like I was at one of The Doors or Nirvana's first concerts and they were doing something new and fresh and surprising everyone with it. The show started with Star Wars cardboard cut-outs being set up on the stage, soon the Star Wars theme began, and not long after that Ryan took the stage. He started out with a creepy blues-ish song that I had never heard called Baby, Treat Me Right. It was a strange opening for the show, but I liked it. It set sort-of a chilled out mood that was soon to be broken. The next song to come was one of the highlights of the night. His new rock version of The Rescue Blues was the talk of the Ryan Adams message boards. It lived up to its high expectations. It was rockin' and it was fun. From there, pretty much everything else that night was loud rock and roll. The show's energy level peaked with the last three songs before the encore. He had just finished Nobody Girl, which wasn't bad, but sometimes long guitar work on the stage can put the crowd in a bit of a lull. Nobody Girl was one with alot of guitar and it left the crowd with a mild lull. Luckily, Ryan was getting ready to remove the lull. He said that he was going to play a song by a "band, they're not very big yet...they're going to be huge". A few more remarks and a couple obscenities later he was was getting started with the Rolling Stones classic Brown Sugar. He was feeling it on this one. He jumped down in front of the crowd, we did the usual pitiful thing you do at concerts, we tried to reach out and touch just a piece of his clothes. I reached out and not only touched him, but took the mic from him and finished the chorus. ...okay, not really, but I did get my hands on his sleeve. He kept the intensity level high as he moved into two more rockers, Shakedown on 9th Street and Tina Toledo's Street Walkin' Blues. Unfortunately, all the rock and roll had apparently worn him out, because he left the stage only to return for three slower songs for the encore (which were very well-done...heartfelt and moving). It wasn’t until the end when the lights came on after his hour and 20 minutes that his big head ruined the show. I booed along with other people in the room. I saw one guy on the side move around the barricade throw something on the stage and flick the empty stage off while security took him out. I was mad, too. I paid close to $30 for my ticket, and all I got was an hour and twenty minutes. It was this ending to the concert that ruined the thing for me. There were definitely highlights to the night, I loved his live version of Rescue Blues. Brown Sugar was great, the most fun song of the night, I thought. Tina Toledo was also a highlight. But, like I’ve been saying through this whole review, a bad ending can tarnish the whole thing. When I think about the concert, I don’t think about an energetic Brown Sugar or an improvising Tina Toledo. I think about a cocky guy who played the bare minimum and left with a crowd booing and a drunk guy flicking off an empty drum set. Set List: Baby, Treat Me Right The Rescue Blues To Be Young When Stars Go Blue Firecracker Nobody Girl Brown Sugar (The Rolling Stones) Shakedown on 9th Street Tina Toledo's Street Walkin Blues Lovesick Blues (Hank Williams) Wonderwall (Oasis) Come Pick Me Up

Read all comments (13)|Write your own comment

Write an essay on this topic.