To see Ryan Adams at the Hammersmith Apollo, scene of many a great concert in the past when it was the Odeon. When I first went in 1974 (the year Adams was born), there was a new support band called Queen who no one had ever heard of and we thought a bit much, while we waited for the main band – Mott the Hoople and ‘All the Young Dudes’… Years later I interviewed Mick Ronson there just before he died, for my Dancing in the Street series, and he reminisced about Bowie’s ‘Ziggy retirement concert’, and played solo for us.
Ryan Adams has turned into a singer of real stature (although not in actual height – he looks like a shaggier version of Frodo) – after many a wayward twist and turn since the days of Gold and ‘New York, New York’ which first brought him fame. His new album, just called Ryan Adams, although about his 14th (give or take a record company reject), feels like he’s found his voice – and guitar – again.
In the past, his very facility for writing songs – he turns the heckles of one punter into an instant song, a neat party trick I’ve heard him play before but one that exemplifies this weakness – means that he produces too much; but these song feel heartfelt. I suspect he’s this generation’s Neil Young – prolific, occasionally brilliant, sometimes infuriating and veering between acoustic and electric to great effect.
He’s joined by his support act Natalie Prass for a couple of well matched duets, including a showstopping ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’, and gets even the most jaded of London’s spoilt-for-choice rock audience singing along to ‘When the Stars Go Blue’. Oh, and he keeps talking about ‘dudes’ on stage. Which no one else has done since Ian Hunter.
NB – The footage of Mick Ronson playing solo for us in the stalls at Hammersmith Odeon was played back at the memorial concert held at the Odeon for him when he died in 1993, shortly after the interview was recorded: a strange and ghostly moment. Ronson was a charming and honest man, and still undervalued. Quite apart from his transformative work with Bowie and Lou Reed, he had also just reinvigorated Morrissey’s career with the excellent Your Arsenal album that for the first time made the petulant one a star in the States.