Saturday, September 17, 2011

Lucinda Williams Wedding Videos

Most online wedding videos are rather dire, more interesting (if interesting at all) as train wrecks waiting to happen, and weddings that close with AC/DC songs are particularly unlikely to appeal to anybody not interested in ridiculing the participants.  However . . .


Two years ago, Lucinda Williams kicked off her "30th Anniversary Tour" at First Avenue in Minneapolis, a 650-seat club converted from a former Greyhound bus depot in 1970. About a week before the concert, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune broke the news that Williams and her fiancé-manager Tom Overby had scheduled their marriage ceremony between the main set and the encores of the September 18 concert.

The suggestion for an onstage wedding reportedly came from Williams's father, onetime U.S. poet laureate Miller Williams. An inspiration was apparently Hank Williams's onstage wedding in 1952.

There doesn't seem to be an audio recording of the concert in circulation, but there are lot of photos to be found, and, even better, enough audience videos to allow a pretty good record of the event. Williams began the show with "Motherless Children," running through a brief history of her recording career with "Stop Breaking Down," "Lafayette," "Happy Woman Blues," "I Just Wanted to See You So Bad," "Big Red Sun Blues." "Changed the Locks," "Pineola," "Sweet Old World," "Concrete and Barbed Wire," "I Lost It." "Joy," "Out of Touch," "Essence," "Real Live Bleeding Fingers," "Righteously," and "Come On." (It's a little surprising not to see "Passionate Kisses" in there, at least to me, but the song wasn't a regular feature of her 2009 setlists.) The main set finished with "Honey Bee," and there's a pretty good video of the performance.

Honey Bee


Williams then returned for two solo acoustic songs. The first, "Plan To Marry," pretty clearly sets up the remainder of the evening.


Plan To Marry


Lucinda finishes with what is probably the musical highlight of the night, her first performance (I believe) of the Hank Williams lyrics she set to music, "I'm Happy I Found You" for the Dylan-curated project, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams


I'm Happy I Found You 



And then we come to the ceremony itself, beginning with a poem read by the father of the bride, who played a similar role at Bill Clinton's second inauguration. (No, not me, the other guy.) By the way, the guy in the tux who's been showing up from time to time is not the groom, but is Lucinda's guitar tech.


The main event

Then, of course, we get the newly-wedded couple's first dance. Untraditionally, they also perform the song they dance to. OK, it's mostly performed by the bride; she did, after all, bring her own band.


Happy 


And then, the sentimental standard that closes the evening.


It's A Long Way To The Top 
And, as is the case for so many modern couples, you can find their official wedding photos online, too. 


The photo page 

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