Live Review: Ryan Adams, Middle Kids

Middle Kids is a great name for such a well-adjusted, sensitive seeming bunch. Their atmospheric, gently propulsive indie-pop offers an agreeable opening to tonight's proceedings. Singer Hannah Joy could easily and capably do the breathy singer-songwriter thing, but her talents are employed to more interesting ends here. Recent single Edge Of Town is a clear highlight, as are the songs when Joy is relieved of her guitar and able to more fully embrace frontwomanhood.

Noted cat enthusiast Ryan Adams and his four young, bespectacled bandmates enter the stage adorned with three large stuffed tigers. We are immediately treated to the jagged, majestic Do You Still Love Me?, a concert opener if ever there was one. Then it's a tour through highlights from his recent past, including the gorgeous Dirty Rain, Two and the urgently pleading Gimme Something Good.

As in his song-writing, Adams' stage show includes tried and true techniques which remain effective, despite their familiarity. The disco ball which bathes the arena in blue, swirling light during When The Stars Go Blue is transfixing. The stage is engulfed by a shroud of smoke during an extended jam on Cold Roses, and suddenly it feels like a Phish show. After a solo, acoustic rendition of My Winding Wheel, during which the audience is silently enthralled, Adams beams, "You guys were quieter than a bar in Byron Bay with 300 people — you fuckin' rule!" He also graces us with his lovely and somehow not redundant cover of Wonderwall.

As we enter the second half, the set grows looser and jammier than a casual listener of Adams' recorded output might expect, or want. Adams is a complex, multi-layered character who is comfortable in numerous musical modes, so it's easy to wish he'd play with the songs' arrangements in ways besides indulging his inner Deadhead and adding rambling jams. Some of these extended guitar workouts fall a bit flat — Mockingbird and Peaceful Valley come to mind — but that can partly be attributed to the imperfect acoustics of tennis arenas. Adams is a seasoned pro who has spent half his life onstage, which may explain why tonight's laconic, workmanlike performance feels slightly perfunctory at times.

One song which is rearranged to brilliant effect is the title track from this year's Prisoner. Adams sings the entire song accompanied only by his 12-string acoustic guitar, before the rest of the band creeps in for an electric coda. It's a gripping moment which exemplifies exactly what was missing at other times tonight.