A Saturday Night in August

Counting Crows (MySpace) played the early timeslot on Saturday night. (They and Maroon 5 are alternating who plays first and who closes on this tour. And as a footnote, Maroon 5 wasn't nearly as bad as we thought they would be. They were actually pretty good, if not especially captivating. But they weren't who we were there to see, so we won't be going into detail about them.) Pretty much right off the bat, we knew we were in for a good set from Counting Crows, as the band opened with a killer rendition of the old favorite "Omaha." From there, they moved to a few more older songs. In fact, the Crows' set featured only two songs from their most recent album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings. In a way, because it's the album they're (theoretically) supporting at the moment, we expected to hear more from it. But on the other hand, when you only have an hour and fifteen minutes to play, and a good number of people are there to hear your older material, then you might be a little limited and selective with regard to the new stuff.

And that was really the problem with the concert. Counting Crows have done a number of these co-headlining tours, and frankly, these shows—especially now, after the release of SN & SM—do a tremendous disservice to the band's catalog, which really merits a two to two-and-a-half hour set. There's a lot of great material on the new album that didn't get played Saturday night, and there's a lot of great old material that didn't get played. We realize that, no matter who you're seeing, there's going to be some songs that you want to hear that don't get played, but at least when you're seeing a full-on show, the number of "must-hear" songs that you don't get to experience is usually limited to a number that you can count on one hand. Counting Crows' catalog has gotten too large, and is too damn good, for them to be playing for only 75 minutes.

That being said, in terms of quality of performance, Counting Crows is still one of the premier live bands in popular rock. And on this tour, they've brought a more impressive stage set and lighting scheme than we've seen from them in past shows, and the visual effects brought by the staging truly enhanced a number of the songs, most notably "Washington Square." The bottom line is that Counting Crows are exceptionally talented, original and versatile. They find ways to put new energy into even their oldest songs, and they always leave you wanting more. We just wish they didn't leave us wanting so much more this time around.

Setlist: Omaha / Daylight Fading / Rain King / Colorblind / Richard Manuel is Dead / Mr. Jones / Washington Square / Sundays / A Murder of One // Encore: Goodnight L.A. / A Long December / Walkaways

Photos by author. To see all of our photos from Saturday night's Counting Crows set, click here!