Lucinda Williams @ 9:30 Club
Lucinda Williams plays her second of two nights at the 9:30 Club tonight, March 4. Tickets, $40, are still available.
This moment came after she'd slowed the momentum brought by crowd-favorite "Drunken Angel" with a devastatingly gorgeous solo rendition of "Without You". Then out came the upright bass and a series of sparse, mostly acoustic numbers. As pretty as they were — and Williams' voice, which is a little wearier and has little less range than it used to, did sound great — there was something missing. That something, simply enough, was rock and roll, courtesy of backing band (and openers) The Buick 6, and the next dozen songs saw Williams and her wrecking crew trying their hand at punk, blues, noodly Grateful Deadisms, and Neil Youngian guitar sludge. The jammier stuff came a little out of left field, especially when guitar player Chet Lister introduced "Are You Down" with a few licks swiped from the Byrds' "Eight Miles High". From there the group launched into the riff-heavy "Real Love" (off her latest, Little Honey), one of the closest things to an actual single Williams has put out in a decade.
The band was on fire as it headed towards the home stretch, the mid-tempo lurch of West's "Come On" (does anyone lurch quite like Lucinda?) lingering on a slow burn for a few minutes before the song's "fuck off" lyrical peak was met with a roar from the crowd. It can be (and was) a little odd at times watching Williams — who at 56 seems to write increasingly lewd, innuendo-laden songs as the years pass — sing about her "honey bee" leaving his "sweetness" on her "tummy", but I guess you've got to admire that kind of honesty. If it ever becomes too much to take, there's always her dynamite twin lead guitarists to keep you distracted.
Williams came back from the encore break to do a wonderful solo version of Hendrix's "Angel", before the band joined her for two more. "Little Rock Star" — which borders on indie rock — built dramatically, like a parallel-universe version of the Hold Steady's "Killer Parties", and set up what could've been a grand finale cover of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top". That song, like a few of hers in recent years, got mired in mid-tempo bluesy-ness from which her crack band just couldn't rescue it, but it wasn't enough to ruin a confident, consistent, and surprisingly rocking set from one of American music's all-time greats.
Lucinda Williams and Buick 6 play the second of their two nights in D.C. tonight at the 9:30 Club. Doors at 7 p.m. Tickets, $40, are still available.