Lucinda Williams concert, Circus Krone, Munich, Sunday 19th June

Support act was Dirk Darmstaedter with songs as follows:
Sing the Newspaper
Learn to Love (written in an ETAP hotel, for this tour, he said he was staying at the mandarin oriental with lucinda – a big difference from where he normally stays!)
This is where I Leave You
Pop Guitars (inspired by hearing Johnny Marr’s playing on This Charming Man whilst 16 years old and driving a car in the US)
Five Years
Won’t Die for You
Where do we go from Here?

His singing style is very clean, reminding me at the high notes of joe jackson (eg. that they learned the same technique, drawing back from the mic), sometimes of Prefab Sprout and then with the clean, soft vocal of (and it took me nearly a week to work this out) of chesney hawkes!
he was alone on stage with only his guitar, tapping it to create a percussive element when needed, impressive set and catchy tunes with interesting lyrics.

The songs are mostly from his new album, here’s a short bio and review:
http://www.dirkdarmstaedter.com/aboutme/

At the interval, go to buy a couple of CDs from the merchandising desk, a guy was very interested in buying the CD from her guitarist, stuart mathis, also there was a CD from matt blake ‘all the dirt in town’, who she has sung with on “Whichever Way the Wind Blows”, should check this out

Notice an interesting concert option in october:
finsmusic.com

Then it’s finally time for the concert to begin, took ages between the support and her coming on

the lucinda williams concert reminded me a bit about the elvis costello concert which also took place here
the concert was just her and a guitarist, with costello it was just him
she also sang with music/words on a music stand – guess they both have such a wide repertoire it is too much to expect to remember all the words/music.
finally the reliance on mainly gibson guitars (although her acoustic looked like a washburn, but am pretty sure it was a gibson), changing to a fender only toward the end like costello and her guitarist, steve mathis was also using a gibson, the same type as the guitarist at the black concert

songs and notes were
Can’t Let go

Pineola – “party over”, song is about a young poet, whom her dad taught and who took his life, she went to his funeral and wrote the song afterwards

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – about seeing life through a child’s eyes, her dad, a poetry teacher, helped her see that it was autobiographical

West Memphis – about a miscarriage of justice in the 70s

Those Three Days – mathis changes guitar to the gold les paul

Can’t Close the Door on Love

Ghosts of Highway 20 – in contrast to car wheels, here she is sitting in the front and looking back at her life, all the town’s in the south

grandparents on father’s side were immigrants from wales (hence williams) and germany (müller/miller), and grandfather was a methodist minister
death of her father from alzheimers was inspiration for the next song:

If there’s a Heaven

When I Look at the World

Lake Charles – dedicated to a husband who died too soon and wanted to be from this part of the us, so he just said he was from there!

House of Earth – written by woody guthrie, she was given the text by his daughter, whom lucinda met whilst playing a festival in germany, and the daughter’s husband was the organiser of the festival where she appeared – the daughter said if anyone could write the music and sing it, it would be her – she offers a long monologue of what the title refers to on a woman, helped by another poet she knew, amos lee

If My Love Could Kill – song about her father’s alzheimers
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Bitter Memory – suggestion it was related to her hearing A3?
Drunken Angel
Doors of Heaven – after a long indecisive few minutes with the roadie, she changes guitar to a fender, the set list from the stage shows LU elec
Changed the Locks – changes to the other fender on this
Honey Bee

they go off and come back for encore with 4 songs:
Stop Breakin’ Down Blues – lose your mind, a Robert Johnson song
Get Right with God
Blessed – deeply moving song about life’s joys in the small acts we see each day
A Change is Gonna Come – sam cooke song

from the set list it looks like they didn’t have enough time for the final encore which shows another 3 songs – they had gone one quite late though and it was now 11.15 so it didn’t happen!

It was a moving concert at times, liked the biographical notes and background to the songs, both from her and the support artist

She seems quite a disorganised, tetchy person as she revealed towards the end trying to get the vocal right

In summary, a wonderful mixture of folk, country, even some soul, bit of gospel and plenty of blues.