Review: Lucinda Williams at Auckland Town Hall

Lucinda Williams and backers produced plenty of guitar-scorched thrills. Photo / AP

After a 20-year wait for what turned out to be a mostly magic performance, another half hour shouldn't have mattered. But Lucinda Williams had opted for two support acts. First it was locals The Bads, the countrified pop duo Dianne Swann and Brett Adams delivering a toe-tapping beginning to the evening with some fetching songs from their new album So Alive.

But then it was the turn of Williams' four-piece backing band Buick 6 to warm up - for themselves.

With an instrumental set which covered everything from Television to Led Zeppelin, those boys proved they sure can play.

But there is a reason they don't charge admission to the soundcheck and after a while it was a bit too much like being invited to a rock band/guitar hero games night and someone else hogging the controllers.

Still, it got the ears warmed up for the coming storm. And Williams sure is a lot more rock'n'roll than the left-field Louisiana-born country-folk gal who was here in 1989, right down to a wardrobe that would do Cheryl West proud.

She and her backers produced plenty of guitar-scorched thrills but just occasionally turned bludgeoning plod on some of her lesser numbers like the Amy Winehouse/Pete Doherty-inspired Little Rock Star. While the encore of AC/DC's It's A Long Way To the Top, which also ended last year's Little Honey album seemed a little at odds with what had preceded it. Though this show had a strange dynamic - bar-room country rock 'n' blues in a stately setting before
a reverent audience.

But we got what we came for - the sad, sultry glories of Williams' voice and songs on a two-hour set which stretched way back through this late bloomer's career and across her stylistic palette. Though there were some constants to her lyrics: "Here's another song about another beautiful loser," she quipped after finishing Drunken Angel and heading into Pineola.

A few songs later she was almost inducing synthesia on the acoustic ballad Blue, her voice hitting low resonant notes of quiet but deep emotional power.

But she hollered up a storm, too - one of the night's most thrilling moments was her tearing a strip off some inadequate lover on the Come On (a sort of You're So Vain for the pickup and shotgun set).

Still, the most memorable moments came in the few acoustic solo-ish numbers like the aforementioned Blue, the lovely Fruits of My Labour and her take on Motherless Child.

But Lucinda the power-twang blues-rocker was proved something powerful and exciting. Especially on the home stretch as she dusted off early classic Change the Locks, the Stonesy Real Live Bleeding Fingers..., the garage rocker of Honey Bee and the gospel blues of Joy.

Lumpy start aside, it was a performance that showed Williams remains something truly special. And that if she holds to her promise of returning a little sooner (fear of flying apparently) next time, we might even learn to like the Buick 6 overture.