Dodging snacks, Lucinda Williams delivers snark, spark

There are certain things you can count on at nearly every Lucinda Williams concert nowadays: that she'll play a couple of brand-spanking-new songs and blow her diehard fans away with them; that her 1990s barnstormer "Joy" will blow everyone else away, and that there will be at least one awkward moment when it looks as if Williams might blow up and walk away.

Monday night's sold-out performance by the emotionally rocky alt-country queen at the Minnesota Zoo's amphitheater in Apple Valley fulfilled that trilogy once again. But it went off without a hitch this time. The would-be show-stopping incident -- when an idiot threw a pretzel piece near her head -- was taken with a grain of salt, so to speak.

"Does that mean we suck?" she asked with a smirk, joking that the pretzel made her "feel at home."

Williams' laid-back reaction was indicative of much of her two-hour set. The fiery Southern songstress, 55, pleasantly breezed through several of her midtempo standards early on, including "I Lost It," "Right in Time" and "Essence." She then forsook her usual pained lyricism for themes that edged on bliss in some of her as-yet-unreleased tunes.

"Tears of Joy," a new one played early in the set, sounded like a smoky blues tune but was actually a gushing love song. That was soon followed with "Real Love," a Replacements-style rocker whose musical gusto was matched with romantic verve.

After playing another sweet and upbeat new one, "Circles and X's," Williams sheepishly commented, "I saw some faces out there thinking, 'Man, this sure is country.' "

"Circles and X's" was one of the only songs that harked back to Williams' twangier days. Instead, the latter half of the set was heavy with rock oomph, including "Come On," a stormy new song called "Little Rock Star" that will no doubt spark debate over who inspired it (first line: "It's clear you have a death wish"), plus another new gem, "Honey Bee," which sounded like Muddy Waters meets Kiss.

Most surprising of all, the encore ended with -- get this! -- a cover of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)," which took on a charmingly wearier sound under Williams' tattered wings. Even as a bona-fide rocker, she still sounded on top of her game.

Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658