Posted just now on Ryan Adams’ Instagram:
“Sadly this will be my FINAL visit [to Australia/NZ]. I am so honored by so many of you having bought tickets so early. These sets are 30 songs long…You can expect the best damn setlists…I’m sorry to say goodbye but I’m grateful that I’ll have the chance”
My question is this: Has any artist to your knowledge ever publicly retired from just one part of their market? I understand an artist retiring all together, or moving to Las Vegas, and God knows we’re used to bands only touring here every three or four albums, but I don’t ever recall an artist doing this before. (Maybe Townshend saying The Who would never return after some shabby journalistic treatment in the 70s).
I’ve seen him ‘enough’ and have enjoyed it very much, so I was giving it a miss anyway (and the thought of 30 acoustic songs in a pretty big enormodome doesn’t appeal). But if I *were* on the fence, I think this decision/announcement would be far more likely to make me decide to tell him to go f— himself.
Just me?
Odly enough Miki Berenyi, of Lush fame, keeps on popping up on my ‘feeds’, even though I don’t actually follow her, saying why don’t you come along to my ‘last ever!’ US tour. So it would seem to be a thing. Sort of like a variation on the retirement tour, but repeated country by country in ever diminishing circles as costs rise and your appeal becomes more selective. Until, ‘last ever date outside London!’
As Guiri says Miki has indeed just announced her band’s last tour of America, mainly due to finance (she has written fairly extensively about the economics of touring) and her partner/guitarist’s aversion to flying.
Yours was put rather less flippantly to be fair. Must say I feel for people in this situation who make their living doing this. I guess you’d do anything to attract the punters and tbh if it was an artist I was vaguely interested in, and where they were playing for the last time was anywhere near me, it would probably work on me.
Absolutely no criticism intended @Guiri . Apparently all the band also have day jobs which need to be, in effect, given up every time they tour. That must be a real headache. I can’t imagine a band like Lush made any life changing amounts of cash during their heyday.
Having read her (very good) book, I can confirm that Lush never made any money. After the band split, she got an office job at a magazine and was shocked at having a regular income she could live on.
Only Ryan Adams could think 30 songs on acoustic guitar in a big venue is a good idea. He’s not even an especially good guitarist. Perhaps he’d trying to bore everyone to the point where they won’t miss him when he doesn’t tour there in future.
@Twang
Maybe he got tired of the upward inflection each time an Aussie
shouted out “Play Summer of 69!”
Brilliant!
It wasn’t bad when he succumbed:
Ed Sheeran does this, though… but he somehow makes it work (if you like that sort of thing. Which I very much don’t.)
I am playing Bert Jansch’s album “Nicola” as I type.
I glanced through the sleeve notes and see that in early 1967 Bert broke ground by going out on a solo tour of large venues (rather than folk clubs) such as Birmingham Town Hall, Newcastle City Hall, Manchester Free Trade and others.
He was playing for two hours, performing 32 songs.
Just him and his guitar.
See my comment. He’s an outstanding acoustic guitarist and would be endlessly interesting over 2 hours. See also Richard Thompson and many others. Ryan Adams isn’t one of them though, he is a cowboy chord hacker, nothing wrong with that but it has a musical life span which demands other players to maintain interest. I think so anyway.
All that is beyond dispute, but I was responding to your opening remark Only Ryan Adams could think 30 songs on acoustic guitar in a big venue is a good idea.
I have seen Ryan Adams solo at The Barbican in London (and posted a review on this site) which as I recall was less than complimentary, so I’m not suggesting two hours of him is a good thing.
Fair enough, I should have added “given his limitations as a player”.
regarding Ryan: this is his normal behaviour. He starts to throw hissy fits every time he has a solid commitment in front of him, and the next step will be cancelling.
He’s an odd one for sure. I mentioned this is the “gigs” blog but i saw him a couple of months ago. This was the same thing – 30 songs acoustic. In the second half it degenerated to him writhing on the floor and yelling about a marriage that ended nearly 20 years ago. He was either having a nervous breakdown or pretending to have a nervous breakdown. I didn’t want to see either so left.
He is incredibly erratic. Has written some great songs – but as a performer -ugh.
I’ll guess he will be back to Australia – just maybe shorten the set lists
I should have had him on my worst gigs choice. Paris circa 2002. Appalling display of posing and messing about, made worse because I’d come with 4 people taking my advice that “this will be excellent”. One leaned over to me after 30 mins and said “this guy is an idiot”.
I think what I find particularly annoying is that there isn’t even any mention of logistical hassles or uncertain global financial times. Those on reddit suggest it’s a way to boost slow sales; to me it seems the opposite effect is more likely.
An interesting time for him: rather than contentious allegations doing his career in, it seems he’s genuinely just doing it himself. See also Moz I suppose.
Perhaps the darker side of the modern phenomenon of ongoing online communities being able to sustain an artist’s career after major labels and media move on, is that the artist is then free to balls it all up themselves through self indulgence, leading to boredom and embarrassment, before everyone shuffles away, clutching protectively their copies of Love is Hell and Vauxhall and I.
He is a strange one. I love the first 4 albums.
I have seen him live twice.
First at the Royal Festival Hall probably 20 years ago and he was excellent. Second time at The Royal Albert Hall (my only time there) about 10 years ago, I guess when he was a bit more rockier than before, and again I enjoyed the show.
I haven’t listened to him in the last 5 years though.
Personally I think he is very ill and the erratic behaviour a a symptom of this. He played Wolverhampton last year around the same time as Bob Dylan. His ticket prices were around £75 for a solo acoustic gig – clearly taking the piss and I gave it a miss even though I would dearly have loved to see him albeit mainly because I am pissed off that I never saw him in Whiskeytown.
Dylan tickets were about the same price for band that included the legendary Jim Keltner and who were excellent.
I agree that he must be ill. I suppose it’s hard to be empathetic when he’s taken such a confrontational path in his life. But I think you’re right, and are the voice of reason.
I’ve just read the John Harris book about his autistic son, which rather opened my eyes to the behaviour I have witnessed in showbiz chums. Plus I have a Psychology graduate offspring, with a focus on SEN, in the house.
It did make me wonder if there’s undiagnosed ADHD in the Adams household.
Pretty sure he’s been open about being ADHD since the early days.
https://15questions.net/interview/ryan-adams-shares-his-creative-process/page-1/
That’s fair enough. I haven’t followed him or his career at all, he’s one of those acts who didn’t click with me from he off (see also: Jason Isbell).
I was quite a fan, but a couple of live encounters & associated bad behaviour, were enough for me to drift away. The allegations about him were not that surprising, quite a lot of it seems to be there in the songs.
Not the worst thing he has done recently. The anniversary release of Heartbreaker that has hit streaming today is indeed heartbreaking. All songs are re-recorded & he has taken all of the soul out of them! It is not good
Dear God, I’ve just listened to that. It is indeed bloody awful. What was he thinking?
In the ‘con’ corner: His erratic onstage nonsense, endless patchy albums after he’d peaked (3, including a double, in one year), reprehensible (though not actionable) behaviour towards women that put him on the cultural naughty step for many years.
The ‘pros’ bit: A load of albums, from Strangers Almanac to Gold (and possibly Love is Hell). Bringing back the Gram Parsons vibe to that bit of music between rock’n’roll and country. The amazing production of Ethan Johns.
I have no wish to buy any of his new albums, or go see him live again. But I’ll put on Pneumonia and forget all that.
More decent albums from me: Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights, 29… I think Easy Tiger was the one where there’s something about him as a person that I didn’t like, coming through the songs… I can’t remember exactly.