Lucinda Williams hasn’t toured South Florida for as long as I’ve followed her music, which means she hasn’t been down here in at least eight years. For Thursday night’s appearance at a near-capacity Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale, the alt-country siren was received with what felt like decades of pent-up enthusiasm. As much as the turnout expressed a passion for the veteran singer-songwriter, it was also proof that there’s a tremendous market
here for roots-music lovers of all ages who are underserved by the touring limitations of most of the genre’s major acts: Steve Earle, the Felice Brothers, Laura Cantrell, the Low Anthem and other like-minded acts never make it down here, to their and our detriment.
Nevertheless, Williams’ live act was something special. Her set list was composed in waves, like a well-sequenced mixtape, starting in country and flowing into pop, folk, blues, and finally a solid 45 minutes of barroom rock ‘n’ roll. She’s an unassuming frontwoman, consuming no more mystique than her terrific three-piece band (which also opened the show with its instrumental side project Buick Six, performing spacious covers and original compositions for cowboys and canyons), but she has an evangelistic grip on audiences. It’s only appropriate that she closed the evening with the gospel-rock gallop of “Get Right With God;” throughout the concert, fans shouted in spontaneous exultation, as if possessed with the spirit of song.
I have no complaints about the variety of the set list, which featured moving, early-career favorites like “Pineola” through a handful of tracks from this year’s extraordinary “Blessed.” Not surprisingly, she played more songs from 1998’s “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” still her most popular release, than anything else in her oeuvre. She played with a handful of guitars and numerous different instrumental arrangements; for one blissful track, “Lake Charles,” it was just her onstage with an acoustic guitar, and it was my favorite moment of the night, a terrific tease for the “Lucinda Williams Unplugged” show I would love to see.
Williams’ encore featured an unexpected treat: A guest-drumming session from the Allman Brothers Band’s Butch Trucks. This meant nothing to me, frankly, but the reception was overwhelming, the joy in the room palpable. You could tell that, for many on the audience, a wonderful night just became something closer to legendary. Williams promised us it wouldn’t take her so long to come to South Florida next time; we’re all going to hold her to that.
SET LIST:
Can’t Let Go
Pineola
Crescent City
Drunken Angel
Stowaway (brand-new song)
2 Kool 2 B Forgotten
Copenhagen
Lake Charles
Everything Has Changed
Born to Be Loved
Trying to Get to Heaven (Bob Dylan cover)
I Lost It
Still I Long For Your Kiss
Buttercup
Real Life Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings
Essence
Changed the Locks
Joy
Honeybee
ENCORE
Blessed
It’s Not My Cross to Bear (Allman Brothers Band cover)
Get Right With God
