I went to see Ryan Adams last night, not quite knowing what to expect. You see, Ryan is notorious for throwing hissy fits onstage and acting like a fool in general. He's been known to throw objects as well as insults at the audience. He even once had security escort an audience member out of the building for having the audacity to shout out a request for "Summer Of '69", an obvious poke at his name. When I saw him at City Stages (our local music festival, if you want to call it that) two years ago, he played with the stage lights completely off the whole set, kicked his female bass player in the leg and condescendingly thumbed his nose to the crowd by saying, "It's great to be here, wherever I am." Then a few weeks ago in Minneapolis,
he had a meltdown and left the stage prematurely due to sound issues.
Which brings us to last night's show. He and his band, The Cardinals, hit the stage around 8:20 and played a solid hour-long first set. They sounded great, the crowd responded with enthusiasm, and he responded with a workmanlike performance. The band took a 15 minute break and came back out to an audience who had by this time had downed a few cocktails. Now, Ryan is particularly anal about tuning and stops to tune his guitar after every song, resulting in a minute or so of awkward silence. As a result, the audience would grow restless and begin shouting out song requests. About four songs into the second set, you could tell he was starting to get annoyed by it. While the opening chords of "When The Stars Go Blue" started to ring out, he began berating the audience. "Do you guys do this everytime," he asked. "Do you do this at movie theaters? When you go watch Titanic, do you yell 'Don't crash' at the screen?" He stopped playing, changed guitars and launched into a different song, which obviously took his bandmates by surprise. As soon as the song was over, 5 songs and 15 minutes into the second set, he said, "Thanks Birmingham - you guys are wonderful" and walked off the stage with his band. Ten seconds later, the lights came on and a CD blared from the PA. Show over - no encore.
I like his music but this guy needs to ditch the petulant, spoiled brat attitude and grow up. On one hand, it was a bit amusing but on the other, it was incorrigibly childish. It's not like the crowd was yelling "FREE BIRD" or "YOU SUCK!" (although as paying customers, they would have been totally within their right to do so). They were simply yelling out requests for songs that they wanted to hear. On top of that, these were songs that he had written! I'd be flattered if I was him. Instead, he's just a whiny wannabe rock star.
UPDATE- I just talked to a friend of mine who talked to another mutual friend of ours who worked the show last night and he said the Ryan's crew was nervous all day that he might have a meltdown. Here are some tidbits:
1. The reason he came on late was because he was skateboarding outside. When he finally came back in, he handed the skateboard to my friend and said "Thank you for letting me skateboard in your city."
2. His manager reportedly became visibly and vocally nervous when the crowd started yelling out song requests. He told my friend that Ryan has to have a "handler" with him at all times to keep him from getting into situations.
3. I missed this but as soon as he exited the stage, he ripped his shirt off his body and threw it aside.
4. My favorite tidbit- apparently some disgruntled fans threw eggs at his bus with "You suck" written on them in black magic marker (where and how they obtained the eggs, I have no idea). He then sent his manager outside to calm everyone down.
5. Lastly, Ryan has a lifesize cardboard cutout of Big Bird that he takes with him on the road and he supposedly freaks out if he doesn't have it. Well guess what? He left it in his dressing room last night. My friend and his crew tacked it on the wall next to the stage.
WHAT A FUCKING HEADCASE!
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