ryan adams

If there is such a thing as a stealth concert, I saw one Tuesday night.

Ryan Adams

Photo/
Kristyna Wentz-Graff

Ryan Adams get in his licks during a performance Tuesday at the Riverside Theater.

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Buy a link hereI certainly heard Ryan Adams and the Cardinals at the sold-out Riverside Theater, but even though I was in the sixth row, I rarely saw Adams with any clarity, and I had the definite sense he wanted it that way.

Everybody agrees this is a great time to catch the critical darling of the alt-country scene. Adams is off the drugs and booze and high on his art.

It's easy to join the "Hallelujah" Chorus singing Adams' praises.

He is a worthy and logical descendant of musicians such as Gram Parsons and The Band. His tunes are articulate and emotionally nuanced.

"Dear John," is a song of loss from a lonely woman to her deceased mate, nursing her anguish in a dilapidated house full of cats. It's an honest tune in its quirky pain.

Death is a familiar guest in the Adams songbook. "The Sun Also Sets" is an eloquent reminder that life has its beginnings, and also an inescapable close.

One of the best moments Tuesday was also perhaps the most surprising.

Adams doesn't do a lot of covers, but for his first encore he did the Stones' "Brown Sugar," and it was nothing like the decadent Chuck Berry knockoff of the original. Seated alone at the piano, Adams did the song as a bluesy dirge, sort of a spectral tale of sexual obsession - very powerful, very different, very imaginative.

Musically, it was an evening full of splendid moments.

But a concert is not just an aural experience, and as a performer, Adams was often remote to the point of near invisibility. I mean that literally. I don't know if I've ever been to a theater concert that was so dimly lighted.

For most of the evening, Adams was hunched over in shadows, looking at the tops of his shoes. He didn't say anything to the crowd for the first hour of the show, and when he chose to start talking it was as though he was narrating some kind of wildlife documentary about the Cardinals.

That was very odd, but it got stranger.

People sporadically shouted song requests, which he ignored, just as he generally ignored the crowd altogether. But he eventually got annoyed, barked that he had a list of songs he was going to do, and then he got down on his back and just lay there for a while. I often had the sense I was watching someone give a concert who didn't wish to be noticed while he did it.

When they did do something to be noticed, it was often weird. At the end of the show, Adams and his band pretended to beat up their steel guitarist. I assume that was supposed to be humorous content.

Adams is 32, although he looks more like 15. Regrettably, he sometimes acts like it, as well.

About a half-hour before Ryan Adams & the Cardinals took the stage Monday, a State Theatre employee said the crowd was in luck; Adams, so she heard, was in a good mood.

A lot has been written about Adams' short fuse on- and off-stage, but on this night, he was downright playful. Between the fourth and fifth songs -- ``Dear John'' and ``The Rescue Blues,'' respectively -- Adams set down his guitar and took a seat at the piano. Members of the audience started shouting song requests. In a notorious incident during a concert in Nashville in 2002, Adams shouted down a heckler who requested ``Summer of '69'' by Bryan Adams, the Canadian musician. It earned Ryan Adams a less-than-sparkling reputation that's followed him, and grown, since.

But Monday's near-sellout crowd was treated to a kinder Ryan Adams, who has said he is sober after years of alcohol and drug abuse. After a string of requests, Adams looked out over the crowd and said, ``Just so you know, no one up here can tell what you're saying.'' He told the crowd that as far as he could tell, they were saying ``Kellogg's'' or ``Cheez-Its,'' the outrageously tasty snack cracker. The crowd played along, shouting ``Kellogg's'' and ``Cheez-Its'' between songs, even after a member of the band asked them to ``please move on to your next snack cracker.''

Ryan Adams reportedly threw a tantrum during his sold-out show in Minneapolis last night (September 27).

The temperamental rocker was apparently frustrated with the sound at the State Theatre, and continuously complained about it throughout the night, moving his sound monitors, microphone and guitar peals.

After announcing his last song and not returning for an encore, several fans stood up and booed.

"I don't know what the story was," guitarist Neal Casal told the Minneapolis Star Tribune after the show. "I just play guitar."

Pedal steel guitarist Jon Graboff added, "What can I say? I'm not the monitor guy. Ryan's the boss."

Adams had another meltdown in the city during his notorious First Avenue performance in 2003, when he criticised the sound system and local hero Paul Westerberg.