I was privileged to see Ryan Adams and the Cardinals Tuesday night at the Red Butte Gardens Amphitheater on the University of Utah Campus in Salt Lake City. This was my first Ryan Adams show, though I have been a casual listener for a few years – since my brother raved about a show he saw in Myrtle Beach.

Ryan Adams is a Rock/Alt. Country musician and songwriter with influences in Blues, Rock, Country and Folk. His Eclectic North Carolinian sound sets him apart from the main stream and makes his music attractive to a wide audience. His backup band, The Cardinals add a tight accompaniment to Adams’ sweet guitars licks and vocals.

Red Butte Gardens is, in my opinion, the best venue in the Salt Lake area. The all-general seating amphitheatre is situated in the heart of a botanical garden on the U of U campus. With a capacity of 2,800, it is a very intimate venue as well. I discovered Red Butte Gardens last year when I saw an Indigo Girls show there. They always book some of the extremely talented bands that are popular in the East but have not reached popularity here yet. This summer’s concert series included the Indigo Girls, Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, Béla Fleck, Ricky Skaggs, the Neville Brothers, Chris Isaak, Bruce Hornsby, and Son Volt.

The band played a set list of 17 songs, including several from the Cardinals’ albums Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights. He also played several songs from his June release, Easy Tiger, which were fairly different from his typical sound – a slower, more mellow sound. Adams and the Cardinals proved to be very talented throughout the setlist. Jon Graboff’s pedal-steel and Jamie Candioro’s piano were prominent parts of each song. Cardinals’ guitarist Neal Casal’s killer falsetto harmonized extremely well with Adams on songs like Wild Flowers and Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.

Let It Ride, Magnolia Mountain, Cold Roses and Easy Plateau, all from the Cold Roses album, were the highlights of the show, allowing the band to really show their talents throughout during extended riffs and instrumental features. Dear John and A Kiss Before I Go, both from the Jacksonville City Nights album, offered some of the most straightforward country of the night, and the new Goodnight Rose sounded great. In fact, the show seemed to pick up steady momentum from the half-way point on, and really got the crowd into the show.

The only regrettable aspect was the lack of an encore for an anxious audience. Adams has been known in the past, for his eccentricity and rather erratic behavior (probably something that lends to his abilities in some way) and I think this was reflected in his show. He and the band left the stage after Easy Plateau, and the house lights immediately came up. Adams has been known to skip encores in the past, but to me this does not taint the quality of the show – even though we were all expecting one…

All in all, I really couldn’t have expected much more from this show. The music was incredible, and the crowd was fun and interesting to watch as well. If you get a chance to see Ryan Adams in a venue near you, Go! If you’re in Utah, go check out some shows at Red Butte Gardens, you’ll love them both!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Utah Concerts, Events, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.