Across A Wire

On November 6th, the band finished their North American tour with a show at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom that was broadcast on MTV’s Live From The 10 Spot. It was an end-of-tour blowout for a tightly packed mob of happy fans. Adam said he was not nervous about playing a concert live on national TV. “I don’t mind pressure situations,” he said. “It makes it wild. I wanted it to be a really brutal electric gig and it turned out to be that.”

Between the high spirits of the 10 Spot performance and the intimacy of the Storytellers show, you can get a pretty good picture of the range and appeal of Counting Crows. When I listen to the Storytellers set I remember the open-hearted spirit of that first night in New Haven, or the times I’ve listened to Counting Crows play in a living room. The 10 Spot tracks bring back the feeling of hanging over the balcony in the Hammerstein Ballroom, or the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, or any of the other halls where I’ve looked down into a sea of people jumping up and down to the Crows making a big noise.

I don’t know if there’s any logic to a band with only two albums putting out a double concert CD. But it’s good to hear a live album from a young group at the peak of their powers. It’s good to hear musicians in the process of discovering what they can do together and finding new ways through their songs. When you listen to the music, it makes all the sense in the world. - Bill Flanagan, March 1998

I thought since everyone plays different instruments on the Storytellers set, it might be helpful to know who plays what when. ROUND HERE is just me and David. He plays the guitar. I don’t. Charley comes out and plays piano on HAVE YOU SEEN ME LATELY? The rest of the band finally shows up for ANGELS OF THE SILENCES. Charley switches to accordion and sings the main background vocal, Dan plays acoustic and sings some as well, Matt plays upright bass, Ben plays this cool acoustic Drum Kit he built (see pictures). On CATAPULT, Charley goes back to playing piano, and Dan switches to Banjo, then we play MR. JONES and they switch right back again. Charley, Dave, Matt and Ben sing the background vocals. Dan finally gets to use his electric guitar on RAIN KING. He would like you to know he was very happy about this. He and Charley sing and they’re both happy about that, too. We haven’t mentioned Dave in a while but he’s been playing acoustic guitar this whole time and he’s never once complained about it. He’s a good guy. He finally did get fed up with it though and he decided to play dobro on MERCURY. Charley got pissed off next and said if Dave got to play dobro, he wanted to play harmonica, so just to get them all to shut the hell up, I had to play piano. That’s why it sounds like shit. Nobody could agree on anything the rest of the night so they just went back to playing electric instruments after that. I gave up on the piano and I went back to just singing and, after the show, we all punched out our tour manager, Tom. It was very satisfying and we all felt much, much better. Except for Tom, who, by the way, we love dearly and could not possibly accomplish anything without. Tomas Mullally, you’re a crazy Irish langer, but you’re the best there is, and this album is dedicated to you and the crew. But mostly to you.
Ta.- AD

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