Lucinda Williams August 5, Brooklyn Bowl.

Maybe it was the Wednesday-night booking, or maybe it was the nearly 20 years that have passed since her biggest album was released, or maybe it was just that Vegas is a terrible market for alt-country performers. Whatever the reason, there wasn’t much of an audience for singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams’ show at Brooklyn Bowl, and even the venue apparently forgot about her for a while, as she detailed in a long story about having to walk from her hotel to the show when no one arrived to pick her up. Underappreciated though she might have been by Vegas as a whole, Williams got plenty of appreciation from the people that did show up, and while she started the concert a bit shaky, by the end she was smiling and rousing the audience to sing along with a cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

In the preceding two hours, Williams was sometimes awkward (especially whenever she was without her guitar) and lethargic, and she sounded a bit like someone’s doddering aunt while recounting her difficulties getting to the show. But even if she wasn’t always energetic, her singing was consistently strong, and she delivered a varied set stretching back to her 1988 self-titled album and forward to her excellent 2014 release Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. At 62, Williams may move a little slower and may have to rely on printed lyric sheets, but her voice has had a weathered, haunted quality since she was in her 30s, and age has only made her vocals richer and more resonant. Backing band (and show opener) Buick 6 complemented her singing with impressive musicianship, enjoying a deserved showcase on an extended coda to “Are You Down.” Whatever energy Williams lacked, they made up for it.

Setlist:

“Righteously”

“Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings”

“Right in Time”

“Pineola”

“Drunken Angel”

“East Side of Town”

“West Memphis”

“Lake Charles”

“2 Cool 2 Be 4-gotten”

“Something Wicked This Way Comes”

“Are You Down”

“Protection”

“Come On”

“Seeing Black”

“Changed the Locks”

“Unsuffer Me”

“Essence”

“Joy”

“Honey Bee”

Encore:

“Should I Stay or Should I Go”

“Get Right With God”

“Rockin’ in the Free World”