{"id":816,"date":"2009-07-26T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-26T20:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=816"},"modified":"2026-06-26T20:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T20:42:23","slug":"m-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=816","title":{"rendered":"M. Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

July 2009, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sign leading into the 40 Watt that night read \u201cAbsolutely No Photos\u201d which is not something you see too often. Most musicians stopped fighting the wave of recording and picture-taking at their live shows.<\/p>\n

But M. Ward was having none of it. He was kicking it old school, and taking his show into consideration, it makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n

For his almost 90-minute set in front of a packed house, Ward and his tight band wound through 20 songs, running the gamut of musical styles to showcase songs from his extensive catalog. At times bluesy, folksy, rollicking and quiet, Ward kept the crowd happy with old favorites (\u201cBig Boat\u201d) while playing a good handful of songs from the album Hold Time<\/em>, which was released earlier in 2009.<\/p>\n

He opened the show solo, rocking out on the acoustic guitar with \u201cOne Hundred Million Years,\u201d then donning the harmonica for the soulful \u201cFuel for Fire\u201d from the 2005 release Transistor Radio<\/em>. The band joined in for \u201cPost-War,\u201d and the party was on. Usually strapping the guitar, Ward ventured off to the piano for \u201cHold Time,\u201d \u201cTo Save Me\u201d and the aforementioned \u201cBig Boat,\u201d which was just a straight-ahead cavalcade of sound.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most interesting about Ward\u2019s live show is too often the songs end just as the crowd is really getting into them. But Ward was ready for this, picking up the slack by diving into the next tune with verve. His final push before the encore \u2014 \u201cRequiem,\u201d \u201cChinese Translation,\u201d \u201cRave On\u201d \u2014 ended with a fantastic cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cRoll Over Beethoven\u201d. It\u2019s not a song often covered in the 40 Watt, but then again neither is seeing the lack of constant camera clicks from the crowd.<\/p>\n

Ward played two encores, singing \u201cMagic Trick\u201d before ending the night with \u201cBad Dreams\u201d.<\/p>\n

The crowd left wanting more, but perhaps that\u2019s what Ward wants. The phrase \u201cTake a picture, it lasts longer\u201d doesn\u2019t work for him \u2014 he wants the image to last in a certain time at a certain place.<\/p>\n

And isn\u2019t that better than a picture, anyway?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 2009, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga. The sign leading into the 40 Watt that night read \u201cAbsolutely No Photos\u201d which is not something you see too often. Most musicians stopped fighting the wave of recording and picture-taking at their live shows. But M. Ward was having none of it. He was kicking it old school, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[45,100],"class_list":["post-816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-40-watt","tag-m-ward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816\/revisions\/818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}