Up and Adam

If the Counting Crows had released Mr. Jones like they played it last night at the Jubilee Auditorium, they wouldn't have been here to begin with.

Following the grand rock 'n' roll tradition of mutilating one's breakthrough hit, the San Francisco band recast the song acoustically, complete with the formerly uncool instrument mysteriously made cool again: the accordion. It took one entire verse to recognize what they were playing. Consider that Mr. Jones is a song about dreaming of becoming a rock star and you might wonder if the band had actually planned to be this ironic.

Who can say? But aside from that three-minute cheat, the Counting Crows' Edmonton debut came off with flying colors (literally, given one of the most elaborate light shows ever seen in the Jube). The band delivered a intense yet musically flawless concert, big on showmanship and heavy on the rock 'n' roll. A crowd of more than 2,100 - mostly young, mostly female - didn't spare the adulation.

Most impressive was the man who gets all the attention in this band, and deservedly so: Mr. Adam Duritz, the dreadlocked, white, Jewish guy who admits that he thinks about himself all day long and writes the deep, personal songs to prove it. That he can evoke such inner angst in concert night after night is an astounding trick. With an honest and charismatic stage presence, Duritz came across more like an actor reciting lines in a passion play than a musician. He performs like he means it, and the audience hung on his every precious word.

After making their entrance to the strains of California Dreaming, with the crowd massed to the front of the stage, the band opened with the title track from their latest album, Recovering the Satellites. That song, by the way, is about how being a rock star isn't always the bowl of cherries it's been made out to be (a lot of tunes on the new album seem to be like that). The giant mirror ball - too small to hold the band but big enough to do the job - was just one of the special effects unleashed last night.

One of the early highlights was Rain King, during which Duritz worked himself up into a royal snit. "I am the rain king!" he sang, and although it made little sense, you didn't want to argue. He was likewise convincing in Goodnight Elisabeth, a rootsy lament about a former girlfriend.

During the "acoustic" portion of the show, Omaha was the stand-out, featuring the accordion skills of Charles Grilling. The entire band was impressive, shadowing Duritz's mood swings perfectly. After plugging back in, they offered the capper of the night - an epic rendition of Round Here, yet another poignant slice of life from the Book of Duritz. His long, dramatic soliloquy during the song was mesmerizing, while behind him, the band built a glorious sound that went from from a whisper to a frenzied roar. It was great.

The line in the song goes, "could you tell me one thing you remember about me." Um ... yeah, Adam. I remember that you didn't hit the high notes in Mr. Jones. But we'll forgive you - this time.

Opening up the night was another contender in the sensitive-singer-songwriter-in-a-rock-band derby: Mississippi quartet Neilson Hubbard. Delivering sweet pop melodies over a sturdy backbeat and grungy guitars, the nerdy-looking band was likable and genuine, but could use a little more musical variety.

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