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| The Counting Crows' Adam Duritz (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
What an incredibly beautiful night at
Shoreline last night... After temperatures hit the mid-90's earlier in the day, the breeze over the bay made the evening an absolute perfect setting for a night of music by the
Counting Crows, a re-united
Live, and show openers,
Boom Forest. The doors to the venue opened at 5:30, with Boom Forest hitting the stage at 6:40, and Live following at 7:30, which may have been a bit too early for some folks as the audience was still filling the venue throughout Live's 70-minute set. But for those of us who arrived early, we were able to witness the resurgence of Live, now re-united after a nearly 10-year hiatus. The band performed a new track, "Love Lounge", from a new EP due out later this fall, but besides that, cranked through the hits and got the crowd to their feet.
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| Live's Chad Taylor and Ed Kowalczyk (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Live's lead singer Ed Kowalczyk spoke often between songs, with dedications to his hometown working class neighbors in York, PA... workers at their local Harley Davidson and Caterpillar assembly plants, and proudly encouraged us to think of his hometown the next time we stop in a 7-Eleven to buy a York Peppermint Patty which were created in their hometown... before joking 'psych'.
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| Ed Kowalczyk of Live (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Marin-county native and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer with the Talking Heads, Jerry Harrison, who also produced 3 of Live's albums, joined the band on "The Distance" which sounded great with Jerry on keyboards/organ. But the band tried changing it up a bit with a segue into "Take Me to the River" which didn't quite work out as well as it could have.
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| Ed Kowalczyk of Live (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Crowd favorites from their main set included "Pain Lies on the Riverside", "I Alone", and "Lakini's Juice". For the encore, Ed came back out alone with his acoustic guitar and began by dedicating "Heaven", a song written after he had his first daughter 16 years ago, to all the women in the audience. "Turn My Head" followed with Ed solo on acoustic, but was joined by Chad Taylor on electric guitar about midway through the song. Their closing number, "Lightning Crashes", which Ed described as a 'fat cosmic meditation prayer', saw the remainder of the band come back out for what slowly built into a crowd sing-along that saw everyone on their feet.
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| Adam Duritz of Counting Crows (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
After a short break, Berkeley's own Counting Crows graced the stage at just about 9:10pm and led off with "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby". It's hard to fathom, but the band's debut album,
August and Everything After (iTunes) was released 25 years ago, and the band has been touring this summer celebrating its anniversary. Crows' lead singer, Adam Duritz, took a break after the first song to talk about how he's thought about what 25 years means to him, and besides thanking the crowd for supporting them all these years, he couldn't think of anything succinct to say behind the meaning or importance of their 25th anniversary. So instead, Adam explained that he was going to tell stories throughout the night behind some of the songs that we'd hear.
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| Dan Vickrey, Jim Bogios, Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
In addition to numerous stories, the band had an impressive stage and light show, especially compared to the relatively stark backdrop of Live's set -- but in Live's defense, they were only closing out their set as the sun was setting, so their showtime didn't allow for an extravagant light show. I was particularly impressed with the Crow's "Colorblind" in which over a dozen white spotlights shot out over the audience and just looked spectacular. It added an emotional dimension to the already fragile ballad featuring Adam's vocals against piano.
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| Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
After "Colorblind", Adam spoke about the concept of 'home' and how he traveled around as a kid and whose dad was in the military. The family settled in Berkeley, which is as close to a real 'home' as he had, but that he left 22 years ago. He also mentioned how his parents just left only 3 years ago, but he wanted the audience to know that the next song was about leaving home, and coming back, to "Washington Square."
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| Counting Crows' Adam Duritz and David Immerglück (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
But of all the songs Adam spoke about throughout the night, the longest had to do with "Round Here". Adam described that song against the backdrop of living on 4th street in Berkeley, just one block away from the train tracks and the freight trains that would rattle the walls each time they passed by through the day and night. It was a coming of age time for him, when he was scared to be an artist, and an adult; and that he could suddenly stay up as late as he wanted and was never sent to bed. It was a time where he dreamed of being a musician, where they went out every night to play and rehearse, and put together the sounds of guitars and drums which rang out for someone to notice them... and we did. It was powerful to hear and made the song even more impactful.
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| Adam Duritz of Counting Crows (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
The hits kept coming through the remainder of the show, and even if you weren't a hard core Live or Counting Crows fan, I have a hard time imagining that anyone walked out of Shoreline last night disappointed. It was a perfect night to be on the bay under the tent or up in the lawn listening to the greatest hits -- and stories behind them -- from two classic '90's modern rock bands that I'm happy to say are still alive and sounding great.
The full setlists are below and be sure to check out our Facebook albums for more pictures from each of the bands. You can find us across social at:
Facebook (Counting Crows photo album) |
Facebook (Live photo album) |
Instagram |
Twitter.
