Review by Lucinda Williams – An Americana legend brilliantly attacks a world out of balance | Lucinda Williams

‘T“Thank you for taking up my complaint,” Lucinda Williams says late, after a series of songs about power and consequences. Outside, Storm Chandra keeps the streets turbulent. Inside Belfast’s Limelight, a sold-out crowd sat on folding chairs for a show that had been moved from the Mandela Hall at short notice, the room strangely quiet for a venue known for sweat and jostling.

Williams is a leading star in the vast galaxy of music still called Americana, and two days after turning 73, she has the authority of a multiple Grammy winner who writes with urgency. Living with the after-effects of a stroke, she climbs on and off the stage carefully, but once she’s behind the microphone she radiates determination. If anything, the sound feels freshly polished; The wording is more deliberate, and the vibrato captures the light.

Opening with the title track from her just-released sixteenth studio album, World’s Gone Wrong, it begins with a sustained protest: the harmonies are locked, the slide guitar sounds like a slow warning. “We the people…the people have the power,” she adds, nodding to Patti Smith, and the band responds with patient force. Former Black Crowes guitarist Mark Ford plays blues lines with a slow-bending eloquence that never crowds his phrases. Brady Blade directs the group, his gongs creating a washed-out, rolling shimmer as the music leans skyward.

The best moments come when you trust the writing to the small details. “Right in Time” turns everyday life into a fraught intimacy – boiling the kettle, taking off the jewelery – before she smiles: “I think some of my songs are a little suggestive.” “Car wheels on a gravel road” is seared into memory through smell and radio, its simplicity causing damage. Later, “You Can’t Rule Me” is a Delta dance climax pushed into double time. There’s a slight resemblance to playing new protest songs about economic pressures, racial injustice, and who’s in power, but Williams argues convincingly that these issues are “at the forefront,” and everyone needs a break.

A cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World turns the room into a bellowing closing song. “It’s great to be in Dublin… oh, wait – Belfast. Will you forgive me?”, Williams caught herself overjoyed. The roar says yes.