The last time I saw The Black Crowes was at this very venue back when they were touring around the time of the 'Southern Harmony...' album and I remember that to be a fantastic show (the various substances imbibed at the time along with those wafting around the venue may have helped); on this particular Sunday night however, I was nowhere near as full of piss 'n' vinegar as I was back some 15+ years ago and it appeared the same could be said of the band.
Ambling on & languidly slipping into their groove (mostly slower to mid-tempo tonight) I found that from the get-go I wasn't really engaged. There was, to my ears, some bad mixing of Chris Robinson's mic which perhaps didn't help matters (much clearer was his brother Rich when he came to sing lead on the odd verse later in the set) and the band seemed intent on displaying the wares of their latest album 'Warpaint' rather than breaking out many favourites. This in itself is fine as I'm never one to only want to hear the "hits" but I felt that sometimes the set didn't flow perhaps as well as it could have.
Now I don't want to fill this review with only negatives as it was far from a bad gig: Chris' voice is as wonderful as ever and only matures with age, as does the band's sound as a whole. There wasn't too much in the way of extended jamming but there was some great lead work from both the keyboardist and the two guitarists to keep the musos in the crowd happy. The new tunes were enough to prompt me to pick up the new album the following day and while it's definitely a "grower" it contains some terrific tracks illustrating how much this band has matured whilst still maintaining their unique identity.
It wasn't the same band that I saw tonight and no doubt I am not the same person as last time either and it's just unfortunate that things didn't really "click" on this occasion as The Black Crowes are an American original and I hope we have seen the last hiatus from them for some time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment