A wedding anniversary spent with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

**Having some issues uploading the videos from this weekend. Will try to get them all up here asap**

This weekend James and I celebrated being married for one year!!

Saturday nite was bone cold and the wind was sharp as I made my way into the Brady.

The show started a little late, Ryan appeared from the right side of the stage juggling two containers of liquid. One filled with an orange liquid, it appeared to be gatorade, the other a tall silver can. He starts into the song without saying anything. They played the first half of the nite without really saying anything. His voice still sounded good, but you could tell that he didnt feel well at all. He mumbles thank you into the microphone every so often after a song. He announces that they will be back shortly after a five minute intermission-which was really longer than five minutes but who is counting....

This is a video of Ryan stopping what he is doing to announce that it wouldn't be a proper show without the Jon Graboff tells the "joke of the evening". I talked to Callie while we were waiting about the Cardinals duels with their socks, wondering if they would talk about their sock choices or anything while they were on stage-apparently I wasn't the only one because someone yells at Jon Graboff to show us his socks. I'm not sure if you can hear it on the video or not, but after that Jon plays some snippet of the muppets or something like that, then he proceeds to tell his joke from Rodney Dangerfield. Someone also screamed Mandy Moore, I wondered if she would be there. No sightings. The security staff-and by security I mean they have a small flashlight and a yellow shirt that could easily be turned into a tent were being real jerks, they were pulling people out for taking photos, so most of my videos are super shaky because i had to keep my camera flush against my chest/collarbone area and keep it hidden with my left hand slightly cupped over it, so sadly most are really shaky-but I was happy that I was able to get them. The video for "Games" is cut short because a security person was hassling the girl next to me for taking photos with her iPhone. Notice the downward swoop of the video. Hahaha....But the video that I am the happiest with is Easy Plateau. I love the way he sings "cats and rocking chairs" all choppy-but this video turns awesome at 4:23, where Ryan sings about Neal stealing his donuts and and now he's going to hit him in the head and then he starts saying he is a terradactyl and screeching with an echo that he has on his guitar pedals. It was great. I was so happy I captured it. Ryan also goes on to say that its going to be a loooooooong drive tonite while he looks at Neal.
Ryan went on to say during the show that vocally we were a great audience, and how much he liked us despite what Neal says about us. You can see some of the problems that Ryan was experiencing, around 8 minutes or so you can see Ryan fidgeting with his earpiece and he finally takes it out. I don't know if this was because of poor sound coming from it, he kept giving hand gestures throughout the show for his moniter to be adjusted. But I am wondering if it was the ear pains that he has been experiencing lately. At one point during a guitar switch he got tangled in his earpiece cord and had to be untangled by a stage hand. Almost every song turned into a jam band session-which I was disappointed in, but I'm sure this stemmed from him not feeling well. He played rescue blues on a keyboard, so that was different, not as good in my humble opinion, but I was still happy to hear it. They keyboard sounds brash and overwhelmed his vocals, I don't know why but the sound was really sloppy. Ryan strapped on his harmonica at one point and the crowd was yelling for him to play Come Pick Me Up, and after playing it Ryan said, "I don't think that song is very nice, but I'm glad you guys like it." I was afraid the rowdy crowd was going to turn Ryan off, after being to a few Ryan shows-I know that he doesn't like the crowd to shout things, especially during quiet parts in the songs, but luckily he didnt let the crowds shouting phase him. I wasn't feeling that great to begin with and had been sick all week and missed work Friday, so after awhile the long and winding versions of the songs were beginning to wear on me, I just wanted it to wrap up. Neal sang a couple of his songs. The show was good, just not the typical Ryan show that I am use to. I was happy that after the break Ryan came back and interacted with the crowd, during the introduction to the band Ryan kept saying, "Oooh snapp!!" almost after every word.
The merch table was very different than the normal Ryan show-No poster, no vinyl, NO WATCHES (SORRY MARK!!!!) But they did have some nice shirts, a thermal, one kind of sticker, no patches, they had a keychain with the new Cardinal logo, and totes that were signed by the band, I really wanted one, but decided to get a shirt instead. They also had some cds, and Infinity Blues in paperback. After the show I had contemplated getting the tote but Callie was really sick and the table was surrounded with a mob of people....So I decided it was probably best for us to get the hell out of there.

Songs they played, thanks to RyanAdamsArchive.com, I had trouble remembering them...

On 8:34PM
Let It Ride
Two
A Kiss Before I Go
Evergreen
Fix It
Peaceful Valley
Everybody Knows
Why Do They Leave?
Rescue Blues (Ryan on Piano Entire Song) **actually it was a keyboard.....
Cold Roses
Natural Ghost

--Set Break--

On 9:36PM

I See Monsters
Freeway to the Canyon
(Band Intros)
Goodnight Rose (Very Jammy)
Beautiful Sorta
Like Yesterday
Wonderwall
Born Into a Light
Come Pick Me Up
When the Stars Go Blue
(Evening Joke)
Grand Island
Games
Easy Plateau
Bartering Lines
Magick

Off @ 11:00PM

Click on the image of Ryan I did last week to see it full size. I am really happy with the way he turned out. I want to try to acutally stitch it sometime.