Ryan Adams

“Just from having been a person in my 20s who partied,” Adams says, “I can identify with the Bud Light crowd—the rock drunks who go to shows just to be wasted. I hear them, and I don’t really feel bad for them, because they’re on their own trip. [But] when we play live, we’re trying to find some possibility of transporting to another emotional zone, and that’s just not in some people’s vocabulary. Maybe somebody is in the audience who just listened to Rock N Roll, or just listened to Heartbreaker, and they come to the show and they’re like, ‘Why is it so dark?’ It’s like, ‘Oh my God, rent a Bergman film you fuckhead! Light and Shadow!’” But sometimes it’s hard to think through that because those are people, and they need something, too.”

Sympathies aside, the band is unphased by all the rock-show rowdies and shouted requests; they’re too wrapped up in the music they’re creating to shift their focus. “People might take this the wrong way,” Adams explains, “but the minute I start considering them, I lose my job. The only way the art I make is gonna be good for anybody else is if I keep it between me and the canvas and what hits the canvas.”

Jacksonville City Nights’ breathtaking “Peaceful Valley” materializes and soon slips into an a capella break. Midway through, Adams and guitarist Neal Casal begin improvising countermelodies as Pemberton incorporates jazzy flourishes. The music reaches a sudden crescendo then stops dead in its tracks with a muted cymbal crash. There’s a newness to this rendition; the version on the album seems like more of a blueprint for what’s happening tonight than anything else.

“The other day when we did ‘September,’ says Adams, “it sounded almost like Arabian Nights. That idea of, ‘we’re just going to do this,’ it’s like what I experienced with the hardcore scene. But the difference is, it isn’t going to be a 40-second song. It’s going to be a weird country-sounding lilt that’s going to turn into a scene from Joseph and [the] Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for a second, and then into sheer noise, and then a three-part harmony. But if the improvised bits weren’t good, if it felt like gratuitous forced fretting—which it never does—and if there weren’t tunes behind it that we were landing in that I felt really strongly about, then I think it would feel uneven. But we have songs that keep coming up live, and they’re never in the same time signature. It’s a waltz today. What was it yesterday? So it stays pretty interesting.”

With this lineup of The Cardinals, says steel player Jon Graboff, “We all get out there, start playing, and it connects immediately. There’s no dead weight. Nobody’s resistant to going wherever it’s going to go. Everybody’s got a common level of proficiency where you can go and know you’re not leaving somebody behind.”

“The musical trust that happens,” says bassist Chris Feinstein, “when you know somebody’s got your back, or you can anticipate what somebody’s going to do—I’ve never experienced that before.”

“Sometimes,” Graboff says, “I can see Ryan movin’ his foot in a certain direction and I know what song he’s gonna play...”

“It’s true,” says Feinstein. “Or you see a capo change or the back of his hand on the neck.”

“... or somebody plays a little melodic line,” says Graboff, “and all of a sudden you see six little lightbulbs over everybody’s heads. When that happens—man, it’s so thrilling and energizing.”

In the wake of coming together with the current Cardinals lineup (several members have come and gone since Adams first put the group together to back him on Cold Roses), Adams feels like—after much experimentation and many musical relationships—he’s now in the middle of something very special. “I’ve always projected rock ’n’ roll histrionics and mythology into my own life,” he says. “Like early sexual experiences—making out and stuff like that—you mimic the things you see on Cinemax, in order to better understand yourself, and to try to find a natural flow. In that way, I feel like my previous musical relationships were all real—I saw elements of that kind of truth that happens with a band. But never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I’d find myself in a place like this. It’s like a real dream.”

About a dozen songs in at the Memphis show, Adams finally emerges from alongside his bandmates, stepping out front-and-center for a sentimental reading of “Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd.” He taps his pointy-toed leather boots on the stage, standing pigeon-toed and knock-kneed as he sings from some place deep within, conjuring visions of a desperate, hellish and heartbroken L.A. night that somehow—when filtered through his innocent, sighing croon—manages a sort of twisted romantic appeal.

After the song, he and the band silently exit the stage, waving to the crowd as they walk off. Cheers fill the dark room. After a minute, a unified rhythmic chant begins. Then, as anticipation builds, the lights come on. The house music goes up. No encore tonight. Some people boo over The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah,” but most shush them and keep on cheering anyway for the next few minutes, refusing to leave until finally being herded out by the venue’s security guards.

On the way out, I overhear a fan in the lobby: “He’s such an ass, but who cares? This is some of the best music ever!” The sentiment is echoed by other fans in the parking lot after the show. “I had to get a babysitter for two kids and two dogs,” one girl says, “and I expected more. It pisses me off when he doesn’t acknowledge the crowd. I love Ryan Adams, but he pissed me off tonight.”

“It didn’t bother me,” her husband says. “It was a great show.”