Too Hard To Handle?

The Black Crowes are a blues/rock band from the early 90s. Their 1990 debut album Shake Your Money Maker was their top selling album (since then none of their albums had the same reception.)

With their long hair, beards, and colorful clothing, the band members look like they should of been jamming in the 60s not during the grunge era. Despite that, the band is a tight band. All of their instruments seamlessly flow together to produce a hard but tight sound that separates the band from other bands of the same genre.

They were at the House of Blues in North Myrtle Beach on Sunday 10/4. The attendance for the band wasn't the normal turnout for a concert at the HOB, but it wasn't terrible.

The opening band wasn't very good. They had a country/rock sound that I wasn't fond of. After a couple of songs the band left the stage and the roadies started to set up for the Crowes. The only decoration was an American flag set on the barrier between the keyboard player and the guitar player. The flag was different then a normal flag due to the fact that the stars were taken off and replaced by a big white peace sign.

Then the band took the stage. The singer, Chris Robinson, came out first. He was dressed in an oversized tie die shirt and tight brown pants. He was sporting a full beard and long wavy hair (to me it looked like a hippie version of Jesus Christ). Then came the rest of the band Robinson's brother Rich, the lead guitarist, Luther Dickinson, the rythmn guitarist, Adam MacDougall, the keyboardist, Sven Pipien, the bass player, and Steve Gorman, the drummer. All seemed to have a hippy-like theme to their clothing.

They opened up with a song I did not know. It was a hard sounding blues/rock song. Chris Robinson's vocals were so strong. His voice is perfect for the genre. As expected the band's sound was tight, all of the members seemed at ease on the stage.

I heard that the band was known for performing covers of other artists songs for most of their live shows and that proved true. The band quickly went into covers after the first song. The songs varied from country to jam band. I wasn't very interested in the songs at the time, but I realized that the band flowed smoothly through improvised solo sections and full band jam-outs. Its like they were in each others minds.

After a bunch of covers, the band went into one of their famous songs, Jealous Again. The crowd that didn't really seem into it, erupted into a chorus singing the song from start to finish. That recieved a great ell ovation by an estatic crowd. But quickly went into another cover which, to me, ruined what they just had.

Overall, the band is an amazingly tight knit group, but they disappointed me. The fact that they didn't play any of their own songs despite Jealous Again, really curbed my enthusiasim. I was excited to see the band that brought back memories of the Saturday mornings back in Pennsylvania, where I would wake up to my dad making breakfast to the sound of The Black Crowes coming from the CD player. But the quintet, put on a less than average showing.