Lucinda Just Isn’t the Williams She Once Was

What the hell was that?

Lucinda Williams brought her three piece band to the Calvin tonight. And some where along the way, they left a lot of what is great about her music on the tour bus. I can’t remember being more disappointed at a concert in recent years, it was just like the band was a car with a standard shift that never got out of second gear.

It was partly the song choices–Lucinda chose seven or eight songs in a row which were all super slow tunes that didn’t take advantage of the talented band or her unique style of singing. It was like a series of dull dirges.

At one point she talked on stage about visiting Burbank and walking into a bar that was featuring Karaoke. She was pleasantly surprised that they include this, the next song, on the machine. But wait. She shuffled through the papers on a stand in front of her. The band began to play the song they all knew… offstage, a man shrugged, more awkward moments of silence. Oh well, she told the crowd, we’ll play that one later. COME ON! She wrote the damn song!

It was nice to get back to the house and put on some of her older recorded music. I think I’m gonna have to relegate Lucinda to that category of ‘not better live.’