Live review: Ryan Adams at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. Fri., Oct. 18

By Michael Gerber

For the second time in a row, Ryan Adams has walked off an Atlanta stage to a chorus of boos. In October 2007 Adams didn’t play an encore to his two set, 20 song performance at the Fox Theatre. Apparently, this wasn’t enough and a captivating show ended prematurely. On Friday, October 18, he barely made it through about 12 songs and a second set wasn’t even mentioned.

Five songs in he started complaining that his voice wasn’t singing like he wanted it to. His stage banter was entirely made up of emotionless apologies about him being sick and the effect on his voice. “I’m doing a disservice to the band and the audience,” he said. But the apologies were unnecessary. His Carolina twang was replaced by a raspy rocker struggling to get his words out. The quivering melancholy was replaced by rough frustration, which conveyed his desperation just as effectively. The imperfections actually gave this amphitheater show a level of intimacy. In fact, the missed notes made it appropriately painful, and the sad songs were sadder. And all his songs are sad. “I sound like the guy from the Goo-Goo Dolls,” the self deprecations continued. Well, that’s another way of seeing it.