It was a moment that cut me but I tried so hard not to show it. In 2007 on a fine Saturday morning we walked along Ewingsdale Road to Belongil Fields for Splendour in the Grass.


A car full of mouthy Gen Y guys spluttered past and one of them took a look at my grey hair and shouted: “I bet you’re going to see the Finn brothers.” Old rock and roll fans hate being reminded of their oldness and to be typecast by a bunch of young ones who weren’t even thought of when the Rolling Stones put Let it Bleed on vinyl does make us bleed.

This is especially so when in fact we were not setting out to take in the musical genius of Tim and Neil Finn but hanging out for a dose of the equally young upstart, Ryan Adams.

The irony of the story was that Adams put in a shocker – he was moody, shitty, annoying and stormed off stage after turning his back on the audience and whinging about the sound – while those Finn guys were the stars of the show, rolling out hit after hit and giving it 120 per cent. Those Gen Y guys were on to something.

Adams in back in Australia in a few weeks, touring without a band and boosting his latest – and close to finest – album, Ashes and Fire. Adams has figured large in my musical life since late January, 2002 when I saw him and his then band, the Sweetheart Revolution, play the Metro in Sydney – a three hour from-the-heart songfest that finished at close to 1am and had me awake until past three as I wondered if this was like seeing Springsteen in 1972.

From the moment he cried the first stanza of Someday, Somehow – “I want to tell you something/That I should’ve long ago/I wish that you and I had those kids/Maybe bought us that home” – I was captivated by a songwriter of great talent with that classic American alternative country vocal, finely balanced between tears and joy.

That night he rolled out a swag of the best songs of our generation – Touch, Feel & Lose, To Be Young, My Winding Wheel were just three – and had a genuine kick out the jams band rocking like it was 1958, especially when he added Keith and Mick’s Brown Sugar for good luck. Apart from that bitterly disappointing Belongil Fields appearance, I saw Adams again at the Tivoli in Brisbane where he charged through so many great songs that a friend posed the question the next morning: “Do you think he’s just too good?”

This time he’s playing fancy theatres solo but the tour holds great promise because of the strength of Ashes and Fire. He is probably everything people say about him – he’s self absorbed, arrogant and petulant – and he still treats people like dirt (just Google Ryan Adams and Neil Finn and London BBC and see what I mean) but you can’t go past his song writing powers. After a brief “I’m going to do something else” respite from music (during which he managed a heavy metal album, a couple of novellas and a double CD set!), Adams returned to his very best with his 13th studio album, produced by the legendary Glyn Johns – the Beatles, Stones et al knob twiddler who about to inducted into Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Using the less is more guitar technique first seen on Heartbreaker and reprised on Jacksonville City Lights, there’s magic in these slight songs. Hardly any are fully formed, resting on a collection of observations that soar without letting us in on all the secrets they hold. The band, the trusty Cardinals, is made even richer with the addition of Tom Petty’s keys man, the ivory genius Benmont Trench. Every song is top drawer stuff but at conveniently punctuated intervals he nails something so beautifully you want to weep joy. Do I Wait, Rocks, Save Me and the title track are standouts for this fan.

The standout of the standouts is a tribute to the Cardinals late bassist, the habit hobbled and crushed Chris Feinstein. “Waiting outside while you find your keys/Like bags of trash in the blackening snow/City of neon and toes that freeze/We got nothing and nowhere to go/We got nothing and nowhere,” he sings. With an album like this under his arm, you just have to believe his tour will be more Metro, 2002 than Belongil, 2007.

21 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Bob says:

      05:09am | 10/02/12

      Huge Ryan Adams fan.  Whiskeytown remain one of my favourite bands of all time.

    • Mahhrat says:

      05:40am | 10/02/12

      Guy writes good music, gets forgiven pretty much everything.

      How is this news?  Kurt Cobain, Sex Pistols, good lord man every 80s hair metal band. 

      Genius seems to require eccentricity.  I would love to hear from a relevant authority on why that seems to happen.

    • bec says:

      05:46am | 10/02/12

      Hell with Ryan Adams’ precious indie hipster upstart crap. Have seen both the Finns in all their various bands over the last ten years and each and every time they have been peerless in musicianship and putting on a good show.

      In fact, paid $20 to see Neil last year in his new band with his missus. Excellent.

    • hillsman says:

      07:09am | 10/02/12

      ryan who????

    • subotic says:

      08:04am | 10/02/12

      Hell with the Finns.
      Hell with Brian AND Ryan Adams.
      And the hell with overpriced, underperforming festivals.

      Why are we being squeezed out of every last spare cent to see 3 good bands all booked to play at the same time on 3 different stages, and the rest of the festival bands just plain suck?

      Rather pay good coin to see one decent band, indoors, with a half decent crowd, than shell out 150 chits to get my ass sunburned and see 15 minutes of some 2-bit band on a stage about 1.5 kilometers from where I’m standing squashed in a crowd.

      Festivals are OVER…...

    • Ohcomeon says:

      09:03am | 10/02/12

      Nah youre just old. Theres plenty of excellent, smaller festivals. Im going to Laneway in Adelaide today. Small crowds (bout 5k), all music fans and no bogans or hipster tourists. Not to mention an amazing lineup.

      At Laneway two years ago I saw Florence and the machine before they broke big, in front of a small crowd. One of the greatest shows Ive ever seen.

    • jay-ded says:

      08:17am | 10/02/12

      Ryan Adams is good.

      Going to see Incubus tonight at the convention centre.  Should be awesome.

    • dave says:

      08:27am | 10/02/12

      Incubus rocked it in canberra

    • Bill says:

      08:49am | 10/02/12

      Where’s Belongil Fields?

    • AFR says:

      08:56am | 10/02/12

      Did he play summer of 69?

    • lauren says:

      10:22am | 10/02/12

      dude, that’s bryan adams

    • AFR says:

      01:22pm | 10/02/12

      Methinks the oldest Ryan Adams jibe around went a bit over your head.

    • Lauren says:

      10:46am | 10/02/12

      The Finn brothers are awesome. And it is definitely not an age thing - I am a 24 year old female.

      I remember watching Crowded House’s Farewell show on TV back in 1996 and being absolutely mezmorised. I was 8 years old and it definitely had a hand in shaping my music taste in the years to come. They were, and still are, one of my all time favourite bands smile

    • Tator says:

      12:44pm | 10/02/12

      Gotta hand it to the Finn boys, I remember a report on a Crowded House concert many years ago when they had a power outage in the middle of the concert.  Whereas many a prima donna band would storm off stage and complain, the boys from Crowded House just got out their acoustic guitars and played the rest of the concert, now that is class as it was all about the music and not about the rest of the paraphernalia that many artists insist on putting into their shows.

    • stephen says:

      02:59pm | 10/02/12

      If I, one more time, hear Love Shack by the B52’s again on 4MMM, I’m gonna jump up and down on that radio, (that’s after I yank it out of the dash) set it on fire, drop it into a vat of acid, put it into a deep-freeze, give it a tap, bag the bits and send it off the the Station Owner with a note :’ Mate, you’re too old to have had this crap song playing during your first lay, so give it a rest, hey ?

      It’s a fucking dreadful song.

    • jay-ded says:

      03:09pm | 10/02/12

      I gather your don’t like the song stephen?

    • stephen says:

      03:18pm | 10/02/12

      jay-ded ... do you wanna get splay-ded ?

    • Tracey says:

      05:08pm | 11/02/12

      Hate to be picky but there’s a typo there.  It’s Benmont Tench, not Trench.  Have to correct it; I love Benmont smile

    • stephen says:

      08:06pm | 11/02/12

      Aren’t you the Tracey with those little dogs ?

    • stephen says:

      08:08pm | 11/02/12

      Still like the Doobies.

 

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