Lucinda Williams University at Buffalo Center for the Arts April 25, 2007
					By Kevin J. Hosey
The Lucinda Williams show at the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts could be broken down into parts or factions; those being when she played her earlier music and later music, and the fans that preferred the former or the latter. I prefer the earlier music, so you can imagine my joy at recent concerts and recordings, but Val and I were happily surprised at the number of songs from the period we feel was Williams’ best (the self-titled album, “Sweet Old World” and “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”) that she performed. Williams and her band ambled out to a pretty good ovation from the almost-sellout crowd (the show was opposite a Buffalo Sabres’ hockey game, so the size of the crowd was impressive in this hockey-obsessed city; Val and I DVRed the game to watch later). The concert started with “Rescue,” from her new CD, “West,” and while she seemed to be enjoying herself on this and other songs, Williams read the lyrics from sheet music on a stand next to her microphone stand on this and almost every song of the show. She followed this with two songs from “World Without Fear,” the first a tune I thought was called “Ocean of Love,” which featured some nice steel guitar from Doug Pettibone, and then “Fruits of My Labor.” In between, Williams joked about the strong attendance despite the hockey game, and in fact, she repeatedly supplied interesting and often humorous asides about songs and events in general, saying she “blamed Bush” for her oncoming cold because he had caused emission standards to fall and other atmospheric problems to occur, which affected the weather and then her sinuses.
Those of us fearing this would be a night where Williams would ignore her earlier music started to feel better when she led her band in a version of the classic “Pineola” from “Sweet Old World.” While Pettibone tried to sound stark, he couldn’t match the incredible guitar work (live and studio) originally played on the song by Gurf Morlix, but Williams, whose voice was slightly tired/scratchy, sounded even angrier and more forceful than before. She noted with a laugh that while most of the song was true, the person who had killed himself was a Catholic, “but a Pentecostal sounds so much more American Gothic.” Williams also joked that many of her songs were about hard living, hard drinking men associated with music who had died, “but not all, only most, of them was I romantically involved with.” She followed this song with another great old one, “Lake Charles,” noting that to help appreciate the song, you needed to have eaten boudin, a Cajun sausage (which Val has eaten, enjoyed and recommends), preferably on a cracker with some Dixie beer. She then performed another song from “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” “Drunken Angel,” dedicating it to the subject of the song, the late singer/songwriter Blaze Foley, before ending the quartet of songs from that album with a joyful rendition of the title track. After singing a song from “World Without Fear” that was actually pretty decent, “Fancy Funeral,” about the ridiculous expense and pretense of funeral homes and being subjected to people who are in no condition to say no to funeral directors, Williams stopped for a moment and said she was dedicating the next song to the mentor of her tattoo artist who had just died, and then sang a beautiful, heartbreaking version of “Sweet Old World,” the best song of the evening. After the ovation died down, she stepped up to the microphone and with a bit of fake somberness to her voice, announced, “We’ve honored the dearly departed; it’s time to rock.” The next song was again from “Car Wheels …” namely “2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten,” again with some fine steel guitar from Pettibone, who seemed to be doing much better with the laid-back material than the up tempo songs. So, of course, Williams and company decided to break into several more upbeat, and sadly, bombastic tunes, including one somewhat OK kiss-off song and a really loud, overdone, pretty much horrible version of “Essence.” Even the band’s “Joy,” with opener Carrie Rodriguez joining in on fiddle, was way too long. Carrie Rodriguez received several loud ovations from what appeared to me to be the older portion of the crowd, but I’m not certain why. While I don’t have her solo CD, I have heard the recordings she released with Chip Taylor (and have the second in my collection), and I don’t get the major critical and fan reaction to her mainly pedestrian part-acoustic, part electric folk, folk and roots rock. Her guitarist was painfully bad at times and seemed to be playing his Stratocaster like he had a Telecaster at times.