Live @ The Fillmore [LIVE]

Lucinda Williams (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 10, 2005)
• Original Release Date: May 10, 2005
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Live
• Label: Lost Highway
• ASIN: B000641A2C
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #44,159 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #17 in	Music > Alternative Rock > Live Albums > Alt Country & Americana
  #30 in	Music > Folk > Live Albums > Folk Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Few artists take the sort of emotional risks that Lucinda Williams does. Pouring her all into songs of hurt, need, and desire, she turns every live performance into an adventure, as the first concert recording of her career attests. Coproduced by Williams, Live at the Fillmore showcases her raw wound of a voice and the rough edges of her band in all their unvarnished glory, as the music cuts across conventional categories of country, blues, folk, rock (and rap) to strike a distinctly personal chord. Even the pacing is risky. Whereas most artists plan their sets to hit hardest at the beginning and end, Williams inverts the dynamic, sustaining a mood of reflective melancholy for extended stretches that open and close the album, while building to an explosive climax in the middle. With the selection dominated by recent material, the first eight numbers are like a sweet ache, as the wistful country of "Ventura" and "Reason to Cry" and the folkish minimalism of "Lonely Girls" explore the fringes of emotional fragility. Then Williams and band flex their musical muscles, shifting into the bluesier side of her artistry on "Change the Locks" and "Atonement," extending the desperate intensity of "Joy" over almost eight minutes, and offering homage to Neil Young's Crazy Horse on "Righteously" and "Essence." Backed by the barbed-wire guitar of Doug Pettitbone over the bare-bones rhythms of bassist Taras Prodaniuk and drummer Jim Christie, Williams tells the crowd, "We got the mojo workin' tonight." --Don McLeese

Recommended Lucinda Williams Albums

Lucinda Williams	Sweet Old World	Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
Essence	World Without Tears	Ramblin'

Product Description

Grammy Award winner Lucinda Williams is releasing her first live album titled Live @ The Fillmore. It was recorded at the legendary Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco CA in early 2004. The double album includes such favorites as "Joy", "I Lost It", "Essence" and "Blue", but Williams digs even deeper into her past with gritty versions of "Pineola" and "Changed The Locks". Other songs featured are from the highly-acclaimed, Grammy-Nominated 2003 release World Without Tears.

Live @ The Fillmore features one of the best bands on the road today, with guitarist, pedal steel and background vocalist Doug Pettibone, anchored by Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Jim Christie on drums and percussion. Their performances of Williams' songs are an extraordinary balance of aggression and finesse that perfectly complement Williams' unique vocal style and songwriting.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Further into the mind and soul of Lucinda Williams, August 22, 2005

By	John Stodder "a.k.a. Juan La Princi" (livin' just enough) - See all my reviews

"Car Wheels on A Gravel Road" was a Grammy-winner that introduced millions of new fans (including me) to the brilliant performer Lucinda Williams whose poetic lyrics, memorable tunes and country-rock sound seemed both fresh and timeless, especially to fans of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Her subsequent albums, however, did not seem to reach her new fan base. The spare but evocative lyrics turned stark and minimal, and the emotions they revealed seemed extremely personal. The music was somewhat the same, but darker, more claustrophic, an accompaniment to the obsessive mood. I liked these albums ("Essence" and "World Without Tears") but if you didn't find them a little disturbing, you really weren't listening.

With "Live @ the Fillmore," Lucinda seems to be breaking all ties to the "Car Wheels" gal, and saying to her fans that this intense, internal, obsessive space is where she's at and where she's staying. This album is not a recap of her career, a greatest hits collection. It is almost completely devoted to the last two albums, and the few earlier songs that she includes either predicted her current direction, or are reinterpreted here in a darker vein than the originals.

Does she sell these songs? I would say yes, completely. They benefit from the greater expressiveness of live performances. Her vocal delivery is even harsher, the incredible steel guitar/electric guitar work of Doug Pettibone is even more expressive, at times sheer metal noise, at other times lonesome sobbing. These songs seem very close to the bone; I almost felt I was a Peeping Tom hearing her bemoan a hit and run lover in "Those Three Days," instruct a too-selfish lover in "Righteously," or paint a dark picture of solitude in "Ventura." This is a full-grown woman in three dimensions, a woman who has not found love to be much more than a momentary release followed by aching disaster. It can be scary. But it is artistically brilliant and satisfying.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Adequate, May 10, 2005

By	guy from the South (Midwest) - See all my reviews

A good listen, but in many cases the studio versions of these songs were more satisfying to me. I thought a strange thing was going on with this recording. On one hand, the vocals sometimes didn't show enough restraint and went to some place beyond the rawness that we like from Lucinda. On the other hand, the band showed too much restraint much of the time - they duplicated the studio sound well but didn't really tap into the kind of extra energy that a live show can convey. This dynamic works alright on the more low-key songs that start disc one and finish disc two, but it falls down on the faster/harder songs in the middle of the set.

Lucinda fans will buy it and like it well enough (I did and do), but...

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not sure what to say, April 26, 2006

By	T. Witanek "beerbothebeerhobbitt" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a good live recording, but owning better live bootlegs of hers, and having attended better concerts of hers makes me wonder who decided what got put in this release and why? It took me a long time to shell out the bucks for this, and had I read the reviews on Amazon first, I probably would have spent the money on something else. Lucinda still makes me weak in the knees and I'll still buy the studio stuff and certainly keep going to the shows. The Fillmore might be legendary, but her performances in Houston far exceed what transpired on these San Francisco nights.