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| Lucinda Williams in Vicar Street |
In fairness now, as they like to say in Cork, she could have dragged a comb through the back of her hair. Or maybe she's going for some trailer-park chic look. She certainly wasn't trying to distract us from her singing by being a glamour puss. The fright wig hair style was accompanied by clunky black boots, baggy jeans, and a denim jacket. She looked like a biker's moll gone to seed. But that's all superficial shit. She sounded great and the spirit is well intact. And you have to love that serious Texan drawl. Unlike some of our rock heroes she engaged regularly with the audience and was clearly having fun. She had the very smart Doug Pettibone on guitar and a bass player who alternated between electric and double bass. Occasionally he made up for the absence of a drummer by drumming away on the body of his bass.
She began with a great version of Lake Charles (her birth place incidentally) and then straight into Bus to Baton Rouge. The highlight for me though was Drunken Angel dedicated to the tragic Blaze Foley, the Austin song-writer who inspired it. And a name check for his good buddy Townes Van Zandt - an equally self-destructive figure. She played for the best part of two hours and gave us or money's worth.
