Ryan Adams – Victoria Apollo, 24 February 2006

Last Friday I was at the best gig I've been to in a while - a mostly solo show from Ryan Adams. Here's what I thought of it.

The last time I went to this venue, I saw the hit musical Bombay Dreams (I still get ‘Shakalaka Baby’ in my head every once in a while – it won’t go away). It is a grand setting for a solo performer, with only occasional help from his friends, but Ryan Adams rose magnificently to the challenge provided by his surroundings. Even though he took the piss out of the place in a suitable manner – “should I be wearing the same clothes every night?” – he clearly enjoyed it, and provided a performance full of theatricality and a quiet drama.

But if the drama was quiet, the man himself was anything but. From the opening strains of Don’t Get Sentimental At Me, a gorgeous new song, Adams’ voice soared above everything else in my mind, piercing and yet totally natural. His voice was beautiful, containing equal parts soul, surf falsetto and songwriter’s passion. Time and again, as Adams picked out a sensible number of songs from most of his albums, I was impressed by how little accompaniment his vocals needed. His most recent album, 29, is not one that I have warmed to, but it struck me that the new numbers he performed tonight seemed quite similar in style to those on 29. If only that record had been more unadorned, allowing the listener to concentrate on the expression of the voice, rather than filling up every song with clutter, it could have been quite remarkable.

But perhaps it is unfair to blame 29 and its producer, Ethan Johns. Adams is developing a Dylanesque ability to re-invent songs when he plays them live; the difference is, you can still hear what the younger man is singing. The soft, delicate acoustic guitar-driven Please Do Not Let Me Go was a world away from the tinny band version found on Love Is Hell, and it was all the better for that. Sweet Lil Gal, slowed down almost to a stop by Adams’ piano chords, never fails to captivate audiences which might skip the song on record. And so went the show, with every song bringing some sense of surprise, relief or pleasure.

Adams had a special guest in tow – Neal Casal. Entering towards the end of the first half, Casal added his acoustic guitar to Adams’, and the result was stunning – Ryan Adams is a competent guitarist, but Casal brought real originality with his finger-picking and interplay. The duo had clearly rehearsed three songs from the Cold Roses album, as Casal added good quality high harmonies to Let it Ride and Magnolia Mountain – again, producing versions of songs which surpassed those on record. Later on, the show seemed less scripted, and when Adams briefly departed from the song Cold Roses to recall New York, New York, Casal didn’t seem to know which way to turn; he got the chords out, but no harmonies here.

I must confess to shouting loud for my favourite Adams song – the transcendentally depressing Call Me On Your Way Back Home. And following the old-fashioned interlude, and quite a bit of procrastination as Adams strummed his guitar here and there, my wish came true, as he delivered a faithful rendition of the song, with aching bluesy harmonica to cap it off. Throughout the show, Adams switched between his acoustic guitars and the piano, which he played from a menacing sitting position, hunched forward, all crooked back and ghostly fingers.

Next up was Sylvia Plath, played as Sweet Lil Gal was – slow, verging on the cumbersome but never quite falling into that trap. For the patient listener, a real treat. After this, the show became more anarchic – Adams began to ramble happily, telling one (real or imagined?) story about his great-grandmother’s death, freeing himself from the professional shackles he seemed to have imposed on himself in the first half. As singer and audience increased their collective intoxication – his via the booze, ours via the music – the show became less focused, actually not as good musically, but strangely just as entertaining. New songs (such as Two), recent country ones with more soaring vocals (The Hardest Part) and rumbling, rolling classics (The Rescue Blues) mingled naturally and good-naturedly, Adams chatted a bit about the Grateful Dead, and finally, with the help of the harmonies and peculiar hand movements of Carina Round, Adams’ tones softened the blow of the harsh lyrics of Come Pick Me Up, as guitars, harmonica and harmonies combined one more time. Brilliant.