I can finally cross seeing Counting Crows live off of my to-do list. August and and Everything After was the first album I ever bought...way back in the day of the cassette tape. Geeze I'm old=). They're one of those bands that rarely comes to Canada and when they do they're opening for some serious heavy-weight and so the tickets are $100+. So, needless to say the opportunity to pounce on $30 tickets seemed very lucky. It was a strange double bill with the Goo Goo Dolls so despite CC being the headliner they only played for about an hour. I really only know a couple of Goo Goo Dolls songs so we opted to skip their set. We caught the tail end...BORING. I'm not exactly disappointed that we missed them, despite my friend's assurances that my missing them was sacrelidge.
I'm still not entirely sure what I thought of Counting Crows set. It was just...good. not fantastic, but...good. I've always felt that it says a lot about a band when they sound exactly like they do on the CD. Adam sounded great but he didn't sing any of the songs the way they normally sound. They were kind of delving into a bit of a jammy thing, which got slightly annoying after a while. I mean, they did an 8 minute version of 'Round Here' for gosh sakes! My friend said she thought it was kind of interesting that they were playing around with the sound. But I think there's something to be said about being able to sing-along the way you're used to...not to mention being able to sing-along to the hits.--They barely played any of their really well-known songs. By all means play the more obscure ones, but with a band that has so many hits, it's just not fair not to play them. Not playing 'Mr. Jones just doesn't make sense! Especially since it was playing on the radio everywhere I was throughout the day. I wanted to hear it live damn it! We did get 'Omaha', 'Round Here', Long December', 'Mrs. Potter's lullaby' and 'Hangin' Around' so it's not like the night was completely free of my favourites....even if they didn't sound the same.
We actually really got our $30 worth. by the time we got there the place was packed and everyone was standing up. I didn't want to pay the $65 for wheelchair seats so I just got regular ones. But even if I could get through all the people to the seats, there was still nowhere to park my scooter. So we found a really nice security guard who took us to guest services and convinced them to move us from the 400 section to the $65 wheelchair seats in the 200 section. They're sort of raised above the crowd so even though everyone was standing the whole time we could still see perfectly. I did it again! I might as well use this disability thing to my advantage...why not?
I must say that the highlight for me was getting to know Adam's political side. I didn't know about The Counting Crows Outreach Project but I was really impressed with the initiative...and with the fact that Adam spent a good chunk of the show explaining it and urging people to support local organizations and make a difference. I *think* a portion of the ticket proceeds was donated to several Toronto organiations too. An incredibly admirable thing for such a big band. It makes me feel much better about paying Molson Ampitheatre prices. Adam also pointed out the fact that this is an election year in the US and encouraged any Americans in the crowd to take responsibility and VOTE. To any Americans who might be reading this, I'm extending the message. Step up! Help to change the situation in the US.
I don't visit http://www.countingcrows.com very often but I wanted to check it out after the show last night. I still maintain that they are one of the coolest, and most socially aware bands that I've seen, but I lost a bit of respect for them when I saw their site. A good part of it it restricted to Fan Club Members. A lot of bands have a Members-only section but when you have to pay to view something as simple as photos, there's something wrong! Make people pay for concert tickets and T-shirts (people like me *hehe* Hey, it's a really cool shirt!) not your website!
2 comments:
Post a Comment