On Friday night Chris and I trekked to Salem to watch Ryan Adams and The Cardinals rock The Elsinore harder than the grandmothers working the ticket booths were probably ready for. The minute the show started I started silently hoping the kind old lady who escorted us to our seats had forgotten to wear her hearing aids that night, for fear that, if she had remembered, she might have left a bit more deaf than she arrived. I think we all did. Isn’t that the point of rock and roll? To eradicate vocal cords and shatter ear drums, all while pimping sex, drugs and tight jeans with holes in the knees? I thought so.

(We were sitting on the main floor, to the left, two rows back from where this particular picture ends.)

He opened with Cold Roses, and by the end of the show three hours later, the small, refurbished and strikingly castle-looking theater was filled with enough smoke to ensure we were all second-handers, never ending guitar riffs still ricocheting off the ceiling and into the hearts of everyone who wondered why Ryan Adams was playing in Salem and not Portland, but thought, whatever, we’re still going.

I love the way Ryan Adams plays his guitar, and I don’t know that I’ve seen a talented performer more wholly consumed by his music in any other live show I’ve attended. (I found myself thinking on more than one occasion that he and Feist should totally tour together. And date.)

He may have a flair for the dramatic, yes, and no, Jerk In The Balcony, he doesn’t really appreciate you shouting random nonsense in the middle of his sets, but sweet electric guitars, he can PLAY, and his vocals? Dynamic and engaging.

The fact that he keeps you guessing as to what song he might play next, or how long he might play it, or if he’s going to simply put his guitar down for a few minutes and talk to you about how he wants to play Nintendo, or about how his “ex-girlfriend was f-ing mean,” is one of the best parts about his live act. He’s a loose cannon, tightly tuned into his crowd and his craft.

He owns every easy plateau, owns every complicated set wherein his love is hell, and during most of his songs he looks as if he is pulling his vocals and his guitar chords out of the very fiber of his being, bending and contorting his body, tilting his head and tapping his brown boots all over the stage.

(Photo courtesy of Chris.)

Show highlights:

• When he stopped an intro after someone from the upper balcony heckled, again, smiled, and said, “You broke my concentration. How can I help you?”
• In between songs on his second set wherein he asked for a “Red Bull, or some hot tea? Or a Red Bull?”
• During the first set where they stopped to have a band member tell a joke, and the same jerk in the balcony shouted “Hurry up!” and Ryan Adams, sitting on the left of the stage, smoking his twelfth cigarette, instantly yelled back, “Oh, f-you. This show is LONG. If this is too late for you, you better leave now. This is the first act.” Cue: theater of applause. (The guy in the balcony was seriously insufferable. Second only to the two men sitting behind us, one of whom kept yelling “Show us your tits.” Ah, yes, so classy.)
• The MUSIC. And the lights; great lights. And the MUSIC.

The Verdict: More than worth the ticket price. Oh, and bring bottled water if he’s playing a smaller theater, and you’re on the main floor. Your throat will want it by the end of the first set.

*Title in reference to this song:

I thought the song title fit for the title of this synopsis, as his music is equal parts beautiful and haunting, the double-edged sword of Rock n’ Roll alive and well and written all over his face.

(For some better pictures of the show at The Elsinore, look here. Front row! seats are so much more awesome (in general, and) for pictures.)