Lucinda Williams and Doug Pettibone
The Birchmere Music Hall
Alexandria, Va.
August 13

No matter how many times you read about the musical brilliance of Lucinda Williams, hearing her in concert is a breathtaking experience.
No back up singers, wind machines, toy guns or pretty dancers needed. Williams and her guitar and her companionable banter suit audiences just fine, thank you.

“You all don’t have to be quiet or anything,” she told the audience at the first of two recent sold-out shows at The Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.

Corny as it sounds, the audience’s silence likely sprang from the bewitching mood the multi-Grammy Award winning Williams’ created rather than reluctance to make noise. Yes, the music by Williams – who was accompanied on all but two songs by virtuoso guitarist Doug Pettibone – really was that poignant.

From the moment the always-funky Williams, this night dressed in a flowing black blouse and her signature jeans, took the stage and sang “Lake Charles,” she owned the room.

When Pettibone joined her on stage for the second song of her set, “World Without Tears,” the evening’s vibe was heightened as they shifted seamlessly through Williams’ extensive catalog, with Williams moving from electric guitar to pedal steel and back.

Williams truly took her time with the set and performed each song with a tireless vigor. In a set full of standouts, highlights included “Well Well Well,” “Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door,” and “Drunken Angel.”

Fans also heard some new Williams’ song.

“I’ve been writing a pretty good amount of songs,” she said during the introduction to the just-written “Bittersweet.” “Some are finished, some are almost finished. I’m really looking forward to getting back in the studio and recording.”

As one might expect, Williams’ new songs are in her signature style, so much in fact that it gave her pause at one point.

“This reminds me of why ‘Well Well,” she said when she and Pettibone had finished “Bittersweet.” “Maybe I shouldn’t do these songs back-to-back.”

Although the devout audience applauded heartily after each song, the ever-sensitive Williams’ sensed a shift after she performed new songs vs. her classics.

“Hopefully after these song come out, you’ll be as attached to them as you have to the others,” she said gently. “Then you’ll know the words. I know how that is.”

Although she and Pettibone could have ended the set with their exuberant performance of “Joy,” Williams returned to perform her Grammy Award winning song “Passionate Kisses” before Pettibone also took the stage and the two performed “Factory” and the title track of her most recent album “Blessed.”

For all of the gratitude that Williams expressed – to the audience, to Willie Nelson and others for covering her songs, to Mary Chapin Carpenter for championing the Grammy Award winning song "Passionate Kisses – there’s little doubt it is the fans of Williams who are truly “blessed.”