Crows soar

On album, Counting Crows are little more than an average alterna-easy listening excursion. However, live, the San Francisco act surpasses all expectations. The Crows draw a multi-generational audience -- middle-aged men and women trying to stay hip; young adults who find regular alternative-rock too harsh; and teens in search of depth and drama.

The Crows reeled them in last night at the Jubilee Auditorium with their very accessible and formulated brand of music. But much of last night's show was centred on the often-weepy and overly dramatic vocals of frontman Adam Duritz. Duritz swam in melodrama, often allowing it to overpower his writing and music. Like The Tragically Hip, Counting Crows were pretty much a case of a frontman backed by faceless musicians. And like The Hip, the Crows' band members dished it up with tasteful riffs and grooving rhythms. But, still, one often got lost in Duritz's penchant for dramatic vocals. It is this above-reproach musicality and dramatic flair that has earned the band such a strong, multi-generational following.

The multi-platinum six-piece have, in the past, been cheekily dubbed Accounting Crows for their far-too-serious demeanor and seemingly cool and calculated mining of the alterna-easy-listening genre -- a style that includes acts like Hootie and the Blowfish and, on a lesser level, Lisa Loeb and The Wallflowers. But it was the band's excessive projection of melodrama that set them apart from this musical crowd. And that wasn't always a good thing. In the case of the Crows, the melodrama could be a little too much; a bit of a distraction.

Yet Duritz and company were flush with the many hits spawned from their two albums, such as Round Here, Mr. Jones, Time and Time Again and Long December, which surprisingly turned the brooding, moody and often bland recorded versions into lush journeys live.

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