The tao of 'tude and other oddities as Ryan Adams rocks Santa Barbara

Where did the week go? Just the other day I was in Santa Barbara on the tail end of a long weekend awaiting the start of the Ryan Adams concert. Now it’s Friday.

My wife, Johannah, was making good on my final present for Christmas 2007: concert tickets. We were excited. But as we padded into the Arlington Theatre for the Monday night show, storm clouds were brewing on this full-moon night.

The Arlington Theatre
The Arlington is a fantastic place for a concert or a movie. Apparently no expense was spared when Fox West Coast Theatres first erected the building in 1931. (The theater received a major renovation in 1976.) The exterior was designed to create the illusion of a soaring Spanish castle. Inside, false second-story building facades flank the audience. They reflect early Californian architecture and feel right at home on today’s State Street. The facades include lighted windows, balconies, stairways and even weathervanes. The blue ceiling made us feel as if we were outdoors on a starry night.

Despite this curious backdrop, there was a vibe in the air, we agreed, like something heavy was about to go down ... the hammer was cocked and about to drop. Maybe it was the rain, or Ryan Adams’ reputation for being off-kilter— I dunno — but something was out of sync.

Then, just 10 minutes before the show was set to start, while many in the audience were finding their seats or strolling to and from the snack bar, out trotted the bespectacled, diminutive and occasionally combustible alt-rocker.

He sat in a chair with an acoustic guitar and paged through a notebook of songs, explaining that he was bored — or maybe a little crazy — and he would be playing some tunes while people found their seats. He said his name was J.J. Bouillabaisse as he began a three-song acoustic set that was lost on more than a few. I guess some — like the guys behind us — apparently didn’t notice and figured the dude onstage was part of some last-minute sound check.

The loquacious dudes behind me debated the merits of two Central Coast movie theater concert venues: The Arlington, which seats 2,000 and sells Raisinets at its outdoor snack bar stand, and the Ventura Theatre, located down the coast, a hall with room for 1,200 with multiple bars and a ballroom, which occasionally hosts dinner shows. They talked through the first two songs despite repeated requests to quiet down.

Well, that’s just Santa Barbara, I thought. This jewel of a city for the arts features a low-key, easygoing atmosphere coupled, oddly, with a sense of smug entitlement that comes, I guess, from Santa Barbara’s culture of wealth and celebrity: The tao of ’tude.

A powerful opening
I overhead a volunteer say that the show wasn’t a sellout, but when Adams and his four-person backing band, The Cardinals, took the stage at 8:21 p.m., the floor of the Arlington looked packed. The band opened with a rocking rendition of “Bartering Lines” from 2000’s “Heartbreaker” followed by “Cold Roses” and “Blue Hotel.” Thirty rows back the sound blasted; the Arlington’s acoustics rocked.

At one point my wife, who knew very little of Adams music and, like me, had never before been to the Arlington, told me: “This is dynamite, Jay.”

Neal Casal’s guitar riffs were reminiscent of Jerry Garcia, while longtime Cardinals’ drummer Brad Pemberton provided a pulsing backbeat. The band was rounded out by Jon Graboff’s stellar pedal steel guitar work (and later a one-joke comedy act) and bass licks by Chris “Space Wolf” Feinstein, who was apparently celebrating his second birthday in three months (Adams also sang him “Happy Birthday” back in November at a sold-out show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan).

The quintet laid down a pretty fat groove during the first set that included nearly a half-dozen tunes from “Easy Tiger,” Adam’s ninth and newest album. The band was tight all night in its jams, and Casal and Graboff also provided fine harmonies that complemented Adams’ reedy voice.

A vibe in the air
But as I said earlier, there was a vibe in the air. During “Halloween Head,” nearly an hour into the show, a fan dived onto the low-slung stage and rolled across it on his sides. Talk about odd. A security guy was too slow to catch him, and the dude completed his roll and then casually exited down the southern aisle with arms extended — a victory salute, I guessed.

Adams, who was seated and staring down while playing piano, apparently hadn’t noticed. But Casal, who was standing stage left, couldn’t miss the fan and quipped after the song was over: “That’s really rock ’n’ roll.”

“Was it cool?” a surprised Adams asked. “Did he have a medical condition?” Then turning to the audience, the 33-year-old singer-songwriter deadpanned: “Did you see this?”

The band was in a good space, and I could tell they enjoyed playing together. (Adams is quoted as saying he’d like to tour as The Cardinals.) There was plenty of unscripted onstage banter and not all of it was annoying, or, ahem, as com-bus-tible, as has occurred in some past shows from just a few years ago (i.e. the Bryan Adams-“Summer of ’69" incident in Nashville in 2002).

Adams talked about his cold, his thirst for Red Bull and Diet Coke, and then there was a curious digression about Ethel Merman, who died in 1984. Adams said his slightly coarse voice was making him sound like Merman, the so-called “Grande Dame of the Broadway stage.” That, in turn, riffed into a discussion of her babe-worthiness. “When she was younger ... she was hot,” he said. “But not Carole Lombard hot.”

In the balcony, the voice of a woman could be heard complaining about Adams’ references to women, adding that she was leaving. But the boys onstage apparently didn’t hear the harangue as they launched into Casal’s “Freeway to the Canyon” to close out the first set. The song includes these lyrics:

“Oh, so many things come so slow to me
I build them up just to watch them fall
Now 'bout that girl that came to me — were we ever that close at all
Ever that close at all
Ever that close at all
It feels just like a dream now”

Final set
The band took a 12-minute break and returned for another 40-minute set. Starting with “When the Stars Go Blue” from the “Gold” CD followed by “A Kiss Before I Go” from “Jacksonville City Nights.”

All night long, it seemed as if the now sober Adams was making fun of his at-times difficult stage persona — a problem that has occasionally overshadowed his vast talent. At one lull during the band’s final tunes he looked up at the ceiling of the Arlington, with its array of constellations in tiny white lights, and yelled for no particular reason.

“I was just screaming,” he joked to the band. “It was not a meltdown.”

The band ended the night with a raise-the-dead version of roadhouse rocker "Shakedown On 9th Street" from “Heartbreaker,” with Adams wailing:

“Head on down to 9th street gal
Lets go out kicking with the boys and the gals
Wear your dress and bring my ring
Someone’s gonna get it ain't gonna be me”

And then Adams and The Cardinals waved and walked off stage. We stood with the rest of the audience and clapped ... and clapped ... and clapped ... until the house lights came up at 10:18 p.m.

“What! No encore?” I said with a growing sense of South Coast entitlement on an otherwise odd night. Then I realized that in Santa Barbara sometimes the encore comes first.

• • •

Just another reminder that singer-songwriter Chuck Brodsky is making his first appearance in SLO County tonight and tomorrow. Brodsky will perform today at 7 p.m. at Coalesce Bookstore in downtown Morro Bay and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Castoro Cellars, located west of Paso Robles on Highway 46 West. Tickets are $15. For more details visit www.slofolks.org.

— Jay Thompson

Photos from Nederlander Presents