Ryan Adams

For some reason, I only seem to interact with Ryan Adams’ music once every four-to-five years. And yet, I’ve been consistently enamoured with it, never hearing a track I didn’t like. In fact, since first hearing his song ‘The Hardest Part’ around two decades ago, I’ve loved his stuff.

A few years after that, I discovered his earlier work with Whiskeytown, and the song ‘Jacksonville Skyline’ became synonymous with a seminal moment in my own life. Many years later, after dismissing his music because a few of my mates wouldn’t shut up about it, I heard his rework of Taylor Swift’s incredible 1989 album and I was right back on the Adams train.

I recently decided to get over myself and do a deep dive into his hefty, 24-record-strong (if you discount the three Whiskeytown albums) back catalogue. It’s weighted with lyrics that stick, because they make sense to us as troubled people. They often hurt. Life is a tough old boot at times and his vivid lyrics have the capacity to speak to you and create escape, too:

“Up here in the city feels like things are closing in, the sunset’s just my lightbulb burning out”

Couple such lines with the raw sound of his voice, and the melodies that wrap around the jangly but gristly, folksy, country guitar lines and there’s at least the perception of something genuinely real and honest, emboldened by an undertone of vulnerability and fragility. Take from that what you will, but it’s there. A lot of people love his music and feel what he puts out into the world.

So, tonight, catching Adams live for the first time, after several years that have seen his world change entirely, I’m apprehensive, excited, unsure and eager. What has become of him? Put it this way, the mood in the industry is shifting (according to friends in the biz) and fans are, once again, turning out for his shows in their droves.

He walks onto the dimly lit stage, adorned with lamps he later describe as being “stolen from your granny’s house” and a piano, somewhat trepidatiously. He looks uncertain, but once the room catches sight of him, and howls of “We love you, Ryan” bellow around this beautifully acoustic space, he seems to relax. Then it falls silent, he picks up his guitar and gets to work.

The set is delivered in two halves with a short intermission. “I f**king hate intermissions”, he tells the crowd towards the end of the first set. “But it does give me a chance to take you guys on a bit of a journey and try some stuff, though.” And, that, he does. Opening with ‘Oh Sweet Carolina’ from his much-acclaimed Heartbreaker album, everything is bare bones. You can hear his hands move along the neck of his acoustic guitar, while cracks emanating from some uncertainty in his voice are obvious too. This is the Adams I’d always been drawn to.

He then works through a number of beautifully subtle, but weighty songs, including ‘Ashes & Fire’, from the eponymously titled 2011 album; ‘16 Days’ from his time with Whiskeytown; ‘My Winding Wheel’ from the Heartbreaker album; and ‘Gimme Something Good’ from the 2014 self-titled Ryan Adams record.

Then he’s on his feet and moves over to an upright piano for a few songs. It’s awkwardly facing away from the audience, but that works in his favour and ours. It’s like being a fly-on-the-wall, watching him sing songs that mean something private to him. He’s alone in a genuine I-don’t-care-who’s-watching kind of way. And then, as the set progresses towards its conclusion, he begins on a sort-of ode to Birmingham.

He starts with a sombre, minimalistic take on Black Sabbath’s classic song ‘War Pigs’, which to a die-hard fan of the band like me feels like a risky move. Then, a few songs later, he takes on the band’s title song ‘Black Sabbath’. At this point, it becomes obvious he’s not trying to impress with wonderfully orchestrated reworks. He’s playing the songs in a fashion of his own, which is no surprise when you think of his approach to music.

The highlight of this section is probably his cover of ‘Changes’, from the 1974 Sabbath album Volume 4. Being a ballad, it feels right that he’s moved to the keys. His take on the song is beautiful, exposed, imperfect, honest, and it does the song the justice Ozzy Osbourne’s own daughter could not when she covered it, with her pops, back in 2003.

After a 15-minute break, Adams returns by playing back-to-back fan favourites: ‘To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High), ‘When the Stars Go Blue’, ‘To Be Without You’, ‘Am I Safe’, and ‘Carolina Rain’. By this point, he’s already 24 songs in, which is one for each album he’s released. And yet, with an eventual total of 31 songs in the set, there’s plenty more to come.

Throughout the evening he interacts with the crowd in his own awkward, slightly sarcastic way. At times, I sense a little irritation in him. To be fair, a few fans bark out song titles and are blurting out random “We love you” noises, and it’s just not the right gig for it. “I spent time putting together this set list, with songs I think you’ll love” he pointedly reminds the noisier folk and those he refers to as having “marbles in their mouths' '. He’s at work and wants to do this right.

During the second-half of the evening he moves between sitting at the piano, seated with his acoustic and standing with the guitar strapped over his shoulder a little more freely. He looks a bit restless, but seems determined to deliver the work he’s put more than two decades into in the best way he deems possible. And why not? He’s got the songs to warrant such conviction.

As the set winds-down, or up, depending on how you look at it, he arrives at his highly lauded cover of Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’, before moving onto ‘Outbound Train’ and, perhaps his most universally recognisable track, ‘Come Pick Me Up’. The latter is delivered dexterously and laden with emotion. It’s the full-stop / period to an incredible evening of music in a venue that the acoustics played an equal part in delivering so well.

As he wanders off the stage, I get the feeling Adams wants us to know he’s back. But without shouting about it. And from a purely musical perspective, I’m glad. I want to hear more of what he has to offer the world. I’m back on the Adams train again, and I’m back in love with his music.

But you can be sure of this: Adams won’t come storming through your doors with some mass marketing campaign. He’d probably be a fool to do that. Outside of targeting his loyal fanbase, it seems, rightly or wrongly, that he needs to earn his stripes all over again. He seems willing to. After all, with around 24 albums’ worth of tools at his disposal, he’s got a head start…