The Raleigh Expatriate

Editor's Note: Welcome to what we hope is a recurring feature here at Triangle Music, The Raleigh Expatriate. This is our chance to share with you what North Carolina-bred musicians are doing outside of the home state. Enter Lilit Marcus, a former North Carolinian and UNCG alum, who has since moved on to the bright lights of New York City. Lilit (read more about her at her blog, Lilit in Stereo) will be your tour guide to all things Raleigh on the New York scene. And for her first assignment, what better expatriate to report on than Ryan Adams?

I admit, it’s a bit of a cliché: girl from North Carolina dreams of moving to New York City. On the way there she falls in love with music by a boy from North Carolina who moved to New York City. The cliché came full circle last night when I (now into year three of living in Gotham) finally got to see Ryan Adams perform. It was the third of his three consecutive shows at Town Hall, a venue that’s more sit-down Broadway theater than downtown rock club. Everyone had assigned places to sit and couldn’t bring their refreshments in, lest they ruin the carpet. Maybe the adult venue fits with Adams’ latest life change: he announced to the audience that he is now seven months sober. Usually, a jeans and T-shirt guy, Adams may have used his newfound energy to create a wacky stage outfit: he wore knee high black vinyl platform boots and tied his shaggy hair into pigtails.

If the announcement of Adams’ sobriety came as a surprise to many audience members, the set list wasn’t as much of a shock. Adams had declared that he wouldn’t repeat a single song over the three shows, and most of the fans had found the previous nights’ set lists online. The two earlier lists leaned heavily on selections from Heartbreaker, Gold, and Adams’ two albums with The Cardinals. Most of the gems were saved for the final show: he opened with a lovely rendition of “Come Pick Me Up” and segued into “When the Stars Go Blue,” reminding everyone who has heard the Corrs or Tim McGraw covers that the original is always the best.

From there, Adams showed why he’s such a diverse musician: he brought in harmonica for a slow, bluesy “Hallelujah,” and switched to piano for “Blue Sky Blues.” Despite the hecklers yelling out song requests, a staple at Adams shows (and yeah, there was a “Summer of ‘69” request, and yeah, everyone booed him), the audience was in love with Adams, singing along to each song. The songs with the biggest reactions were probably for “Starting to Hurt,” a rare loud note in a mostly subdued evening and “Blue Sky,” the best track from Adams’ latest album, 29. There was no encore, and no special guest star (the previous night, Norah Jones had showed up to duet on “Dear John”). But I got to hear the song I’d come a long way to hear, and that made the whole night an even bigger success.