Live Review by: PALACE PARKER
Not a lot of singer-songwriters can tread the line between modesty and pretentious self-awareness. Ryan Adam’s Friday night performance at The Walt Disney Concert Hall proved that the North Carolina grown singer-songwriter can not only walk that line, but set the precedent for others performers to follow.
One of the wonderful things about the theatre-in-the-round layout of the Walt Disney Concert Hall is that it allows a certain intimacy between the artist(s) and the audience. For Adams, the layout allowed him to turn the venue into his own personal living room, complete with an upright piano and two guitars sprawled across the red lit stage. At a certain point in the night Adams, noting the humor of having his audience peer at him from above, mumbling in jest, “I now I’m paranoid, but sometimes it feels like hundreds of people are watching me.”
There was a lot of humor in Friday night’s performance and it’s something many weren’t expecting from an artist known for the heartbreaking disposition of his signature songs. But, that’s not to say we didn’t get melancholy from Adams (he even bantered throughout the night, “Let’s get sad together.”) Adams humor was a great balance between the heaviness of “Dirty Rain”, “Winding Wheel”, and “Ashes & Fire.”
There were many wonderful gems throughout the evening (if you’ve never heard Adams play his famous Oasis cover of “Wonderwall” live it should be on your bucket list of things to check out – you could’ve heard a pin drop in the venue). Adams is in top form when it’s just him with his guitar and harmonica (“Oh My Sweet Carolina and “Come Pick Me Up” were just a perfect live as they are in studio recordings). But, my favorite tune of the night? Adam’s impromptu piano ballad to his cat: “Soft as fuck…you’re an emotional genius, Mr. Cat.”
Set List
1. Oh My Sweet Carolina
2. Ashes & Fire
3. If I Am a Stranger
4. Dirty Rain
5. My Winding Wheel
6. Sweet LIl’ Gal (23rd/1st)
7. Invisible Riverside
8. Everybody Knows
9. Firecracker
10. Let it Ride
12. Please Do Not Let Me Go
13. English Girls, Approximately
14. Chains of Love
15. Two
16. Lucky Now
17. Piano Ballad to Mr. Cat (Soft as Fuck, Emotional Genius”
18. New York, New York
19. Impromptu song after audience member shouted “I love you”
20. Wonderwall
21. 16 Days
22. Come Pick Me Up
Encore: Holy Diver