Cardinology

So there was this concert thing last Friday (10/3/08) with this band with this lead singer guy...

Apparently Ryan Adams is working hard on subsuming himself into The Cardinals and didn't want his name at the front of anything from here on out. Hence, I got to see The Cardinals w/ Ryan Adams down at the Taft.

Thankfully, www.cardinology.com posted a setlist so I don't have to just pray and try to remember what hethey performed.

• Cobwebs
• Everybody Knows
• Come Pick Me Up
• Wonderwall
• Fix It
• La Cieniga
• Goodnight Rose
• Sun Also Sets
• OMG Whatever Etc..
• Magic
• Desire
• Let It Ride
• Please Do Not Let Me Go
• Love Is Hell
• Crossed Out Names
• Afraid Not Scared
• Natural Ghost Two
• Rescue Blues
• Sink Ships
• Stars Go Blue
• How Do You Keep Love Alive
• Shakedown
• Mockingbird
• Off Broadway
• Note To Self
• Please Don’t Die
• Cold Roses (encore)
• Bartering Lines (encore)
• Meadowlake (encore)
• This Is It (encore)

For a guy who's trying to bury himself into the whole band thing, the stage set-up was a little odd with Ryan on the left side and the rest of the band taking up the center and right, almost as though he had segregated himself from the rest of the Cardinals.

The band sounded tight, which makes sense as they're about halfway through their tour, and they came out at 8:35 for a scheduled 8:30 start time - always good to see somebody being prompt and five minutes late is prompt for a concert. No opening act at all - with which I'm also pretty good.

And they played a nice, tidy two-hour set before departing after a four-song encore. Adams did probably three quarters of the speaking between songs, almost all of which was unintelligible to me as the crowd was amazingly chatty all around us - a big problem for me as I'm there to hear the music not talk to The Girl (or the other friend who went with us). He did let the between-song breaks drag a bit long much of the time, killing some of the momentum that the more up tempo songs would build.

The concert sequencing was also a bit quizzical as the up tempo, crowd pleasing numbers were often followed by tracks from the new album - which understandably got less applause and enthusiasm - or more low key songs that squandered any momentum the band could possibly be building. But that's Ryan, I guess. Just Manny being Manny.

Heck, I'm happy that he didn't get racked off at the crowd's constant chattering - especially during his occasionally soft song intros - and leave the concert short. Thankfully, the band sounded great, and that's what the concert is all about.

The use of the pedal steel was understated only showing up at the forefront a few times. The bass player managed a number of solid power stances, and the lead guitarist (I really should learn some names from the Cardinals or from Wilco, honestly, other than just the lead guys) throw down a number of nice not-quite-solos. Drums were solid as well, pounding the driving bass drum, especially on some of the harder rockers.

And "Rescue Blues" with Adams on organ was an absolute highlight, a knockout.

Sadly, I couldn't find that one online, but I did manage to find one song from the Cincy concert on YouTube.


The Cardinals in Cincy - "When the Stars Go Blue"

I also found another tune from the Cardinology website as well as a number of decent fan videos from Albany about a week before the Cincy show.

Plus I stole a couple of concert pics from their official website that I'm just throwing in here to show what the set looked like...



Good stuff, folks, and I'm looking forward to getting their new album when it comes out October 28th (or sooner since I did register to win the album and get the password so I could check out their private videos on the website - it's ghost, by the way.)

Oh - and I found this while searching for the power stance link. Why is there a Kurt Cobain Unplugged action figure that apparently just came out?