My friends and I attended the Ryan Adams show at Red Butte Gardens on a beautiful warm Summer night with a light mountain breeze fully expecting an amazing show.

I saw Ryan perform once before when he opened for Alanis Morissette at the ecenter. That night he played for about 40 minutes or songs I barely knew, said not a word and left. At least Alanis rocked.

Now, after an amazing new album and news that he kicked his drugs habit I gave the guy another chance to entertain me with his talents. Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the feedback blasts that nearly even made my ears bleed. Whatever it was, he was not in the mood to entertain us. He played mostly unheard songs that felt like background music and only two songs from his new album. TWO! What an *** hat.

On top of that, he barely even mumbled a word to the audience… I’m done. There are some interesting comments about the SL show here.

If you want to hear what RA is supposed to sound like live, here are a few, not great quality, but very decent recent live recordings.

: 2007-05-15 (includes songs from Easy Tiger)
: 2007-06-28 (electric)
: 2007-06-29 (acoustic)

Coincidentally, my friends and I, after showing up late, sat down on the only open piece of lawn left with a decent view and it just happened to be right next to the Armstrong’s. I finally got to meet Dooce in person and talk to Jon again. Too cool.

I must say it was a fabulous night despite the mediocre performance.