Counting Crows at Chateau St Michelle

We were at the concert at the Chateau St. Michelle winery lat night for the Counting Crows with the Wallflowers. As usual the Crows were awesome! What else was awesome was that we were lucky enough to do a meet and greet with the band as well see their sound check session before the concert.

They were totally cool and stayed around for pictures and signing. The things I got signed by the band:

• The CD Booklet for August and Everything After
• The CD Booklet for Hangingaround single (with the single August and Everything After)

The Wallflowers was first and they played for about 45 minutes. I remember when they used to be headlining shows and we actually saw them when they were at Marymoor several years back. Not a bad opening act. 

The Crows sang an assortment of tracks from all of their albums with a several from their latest album, Underwater Sunshine. Their setlist:

1. Round Here 
2. Untitled (Love Song)  (The Romany Rye cover)
3. Four Days 
4. Hospital (Coby Brown cover)
5. Colorblind 
6. Perfect Blue Buildings 
7. Children in Bloom 
8. Start Again (Teenage Fanclub cover)
9. Omaha 
10. Los Angeles 
11. Mrs. Potter's Lullaby 
12. Mercy 
13. Like Teenage Gravity (Kasey Anderson cover)
14. A Long December 
15. Return of the Grievous Angel  (Gram Parsons cover)
16. I Wish I Was a Girl 
17. A Murder of One 
18. Washington Square  (encore)
19. Hanginaround 
20. Holiday in Spain 

We sat in the general admission area and had lawn chairs to the left of the stage and sat only a few rows back. Unfortunately our seats had people walking past because of the corridor right next to us so we couldn't see the Crows with an unobstructed view, but they sounded great.

So I add Chateau St. Michelle to the list of concerts with the Crows that now include five. I am not going to rank them all as they were all special.

Counting Crows and The Wallflowers

The Counting Crows will be touring with The Wallflowers. Check out the dates and locations:

Date City Venue

June 14, 2013 Farmingville, NY Pennysaver Amphitheater

June 15, 2013 Big Flats, NY Tag’s Summerstage

June 18, 2013 Boston, MA Bank of America Pavilion

June 19, 2013 Hampton, NH Hampton Beach Casino (Counting Crows Only)

June 21, 2013 Mashantucket, CT Foxwoods

June 22, 2013 Belleville, ON Big Music Fest

June 24, 2013 Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Theater

June 25, 2013 Vienna, VA Wolftrap

June 27, 2013 New York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom

June 28, 2013 Buffalo, NY Buffalo Place Rocks The Harbor

June 30, 2013 Atlantic City, NJ Borgata

July 02, 2013 Verona, NY Turning Stone

July 04, 2013 Rochester Hills, MI Meadow Brook

July 06, 2013 St. Louis, MO Fair St. Louis (Counting Crows Only)

July 07, 2013 Chicago, IL Charter One

July 09, 2013 Minneapolis, MN Myth

July 10, 2013 Winnipeg, MT Centennial Concert Hall

July 15, 2013 Woodinville, WA Chateau Ste. Michelle

July 17, 2013 Livermore, CA Wente Vineyards

July 18, 2013 San Francisco, CA America’s Cup Pavilion

July 20, 2013 Las Vegas, NV Mandalay Bay Pool

July 21, 2013 Costa Mesa, CA Orange County Fair

Miami

Oh Miami. This song is a typical example of how The Counting Crows can take a studio version and perform a completely different versions of it.

Below are two different versions of the Miami in concert. Both have alternative lyrics and both have amazing intro of Adam talking about why he wrote this song.   Enjoy.

Dublin, Ireland, May 8, 2009 Fast Version

Manchester, England, 2009, Slow Version

Washington Square Meanings

I've been listening to Washington Square more often these days. It is a great slow melancholy song from Counting Crow's album Saturday Night and Sunday Mornings. I love the guitar melody and the support in the song to Adam's vocal. Haunting is an accurate word to describe the mood as is found so often in the music of Counting Crows.

From Admin from the album Live from SoHo album:

"This song I started right after I moved here,

I was kind of, I'd come back from tour and lost something, someone,

I was kind of faced with process of going back out again,

Seemed like a hard thing to leave New York behind,

So it's called, so we are going to play you most of Sunday Morning now

This is the beginning of Sunday Morning and it's called Washington Square"

What I found different about this song is that the song seems to have happy ending with Adam returning back to Washington Square as if he has found his resolution in his wandering that made him "walk out through the shadows of Washington Square." Happy resolutions couldn't be said for other songs such as Anna Begins or Sullivan Street, for example.

Goodnight Elisabeth Versions

The single guitar  introduction to Goodbye Elisabeth is unmistakable. The band plays numerous alternative lyrics for the song however it is difficult to find the versions on albums and performances that I can point to for you folks to look at it. These  below are the exception.

Traveling Circus 2009:

"All of the lights on Broadway go down 

and I watched the rain that fell down upon her face 

I saw the rain fall down through the lights of Broadway 

and I walked around at my pace

And I seen the snow fall down through the lights 

a millions stars reflecting on that sky 

All of the lights on Broadway light up for me 

sometimes I thought they would be mine 

I wanted the lights to light up for me

Someday the lights on Broadway might say my name 

just like the people on TV

So hey Ma, so hey Ma, 

hey Ma, look that's my name in lights

All of the lights on Broadway light up in my name starting across the New York sky

Me and my boys we rode the bus straight down Broadway in the village and I got off

I stayed up all night until the lights on Broadway faded away 

I knew the lights that lit up on Broadway just for me

They lit up just for me today 

So hey Ma, look at all the lights

hey Ma, look at all these lights 

hey Ma, look at my city lit for me"

Pinkpop 2003:

Waiting for summertime coming along

Wait for summer in this town

Got mysummertime coming long

Ain't no summer this time

All the leaves are brown

and the sky is gray

I went for a walk

on a winter's day

You know I would be safe and warm

if i were in LA

So I am California dreaming

I am California dreaming

I am California dreaming

So I am California dreaming

I am California dreaming

I am California dreaming

on such a winter's day".

Finally, an alternative can be found on the album New Amsterdam: Live at Heineken Music Hall:

"Come on down, cover me with your eyes

You used to come on cover me with your eyes

and now you tell me everything is going to be all right

Now you tell me everything is going to be all right

You wanna make me think this its alright, while you're

Why can't it wait

You wanna tell me everything all right, while your're

Why can't it wait

You make me think that is all right, while your're

Why can't it wait

You wanna tell me tell me its alright for you  to treat me this,

Well it is not all right with me

Well it is not all right with me

No, it is not all right with me

No, it is not all right with me"

Angels of Silences Meaning

Angels of the Silences is one of the songs I originally overlooked on the album Recovering the Satellites. At the time, I really liked the Counting Crows more melancholy songs and AotS is fast paced, fast moving song.

However, when I went back and listens to the lyrics, the songs really works. It has a message that can be sung in a slow paced self reflective song or a fast beat semi-angry rant.

From Adam Duritz and the Counting Crows Storytellers on June 7, 1999:

"I write quite a few songs where the sort of issue is faith, having faith, keeping faith

and this song in particular is about the difficulty in having faith in things

and finding things to have faith in, in yourself, in God, in like he said, in a woman

Faith is a weird thing, it in a sense it is all about waiting

It's not actually about getting anything, you know

Faith is about the wait because once you get something there is no need anymore

and so a lot about faith is just the willingness to sort of throw yourself on a fence 

and hang there for a while

That's a very difficult and bitter thing, you know

In this song the, I keep saying the main character, 'I'

I said, 'All my sins, I would pay for them if I could come back to you' 

It's not just about finding things to believe in

It's about wanting to be able to believe in anything too

And it's about all the voices that get inside your head 

and whisper for you to do it or not to do it as well

And it's called "Angels of the Silences" 

Anna Begins Meaning

Anna Begins off of the August and Everything After is still to me one of the most powerful songs off of the album.

From Counting Crows Storytellers on June 7th, 1999:

"There was this period where I got really, really sick of playing music 

and I, I saved up some money from landscaping

and I bought a backpack and some boots 

and me and a friend got tickets

and went over to Europe just to backpack around Europe

It was like the summer of 1989

I ended up on this Greek island and I met this girl named Anna 

and I completely fell in love with her and I think vice versa

Which is a dumb thing to do in the middle of the summer on a Greek island 

because the girl is  from Australia and you're from California 

and the last thing- you should have a fling, you know

But the last thing you need to do is fall in love with a girl from Australia 

because you've got, you don't have years

You have weeks, you know

and then everyone goes home, you know. 

We were kids and the plane tickets are too expensive 

and you can't change these things, you know 

and it was just really difficult 

because no one wants to really cop to how important they feel about it 

because it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a hole that you are gonna fall into, you know.

and so the song is really about denial, you know,

The characters in the song keep saying to each other 

'No, no, I'm not ready for this sorta thing'

Until the very end when it's too late 

and they realize what they really weren't ready for is the loss 

and it's a terrible thing to find out because it's a, it's too late

Which is what it ended up being at that point

And it's, it's, it's funny she's married now and she's got a kid 

and she still lives in Sydney and we still talk every once in a while, not too much

but whenever I talk to her she still tells me that she loves this song and I do too

This is, this is Anna Begins "

Adam's idea of denial in love makes the song real. Sometimes things don't always end as a fairy tale.  In life sometimes the loss is what keeps with you and lingers. But love is there, even though it may have been unexpected.  It's still there after it is over.

I also have another interpretation of the song for me personally. One of my daughters name is Anna. We named her after Anna Begins.

"And every time she sneezes I believe it's love and

Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing"

Those lyrics really sums up for me how unexpected I felt about her. She wasn't unexpected but the late nights  when I was with her and rocking her to sleep, I would think of this song.

Outlaw Roadshow is done

Another summer and another Counting Crows concert series is now complete. I love how the Crows continue to journey across America to perform their music. Let's hope that the Crows are touring again soon. Here are some concert footage from the performance in Virginia.

Four Days, June, 20, 2012 - Wolf Trap Vienna, VA

Carriage, June 20, 2012 - Wolf Trap Vienna, VA

Hospital, June 20, 2012, Wolf Trap Vienna, VA

Anna Begins Versions

There is probably no better version of Anna Begins than on the original studio version on August and Everything After. The song is done on numerous occasions in live concert and also appears on multiple live albums such as Across a Wire: Live In New York Disc 1, Live at Town Hall, and August and Everything After Deluxe Edition Disc 2. Most of the live versions are done acoustically and have a softer sound. To me the live versions seemed artificially drawn out and does not have the melody and harmony that Counting Crows captured in the studio version.

In the studio version, the song and lyrics build to the one of my favorite parts when Anna is mentioned for the first time:

"This time when kindness fall like rain, 

It washes her away and Anna begins to change her mind

'These seconds when I'm shaking leave me shuddering for days', she says

And I'm not ready for this sort of thing"

And then the song finishes off amazingly with the chorus and Anna is mentioned again:

"The time when kindness falls like rain, 

It washes me away and Anna begins to change my mind

And every time she sneezes I believe it's love and

Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

She's talking in her sleep. 

It's keeping me awake and Anna begins to toss and turn

And every word is nonsense but I understand and

Oh lord, I m not ready for this sort of thing

Her kindness bangs a gong, 

It's moving me along and Anna begins to fade away

It's chasing me away... She disappears and

Oh lord , I'm not ready for this sort of thing

The music that build up to lyrics is what makes the studio version great. It is the build up that I think the live version doesn't capture for me. Although the live versions are still good, I would listen to the studio version every time when listening to Anna Begins.

Below are the studio versions and an acoustic version.

Studio Version of Anna Begins

Acoustic Version of Anna Begins

Angels of the Silences Versions

I will admit that when  Recovery the Satellites, debuted I didn't love it as much as I did August and Everything After. I will also admit to this day that AaEA is still my favorite album. However, I have a new appreciation of the Counting Crows second album.

My earlier impressions were that the album just sounded different from the first, and I was looking for more melancholy songs such as Sullivan Street and Anna Begins.

The sound of the band changed in second album mainly because they added second guitarist. The added sound can be clearly heard throughout RtS. The second track on the album is Angels of the Silences. It was a completely different song than say Round Here of the first album.

I began to listen to the song more and more.  Then I started watching the video. I began to love the song more and more. I  loved the simplicity of the video of them in concert just singing. The song's pace and lyrics are almost a perfect match with Adam's honest words as well as the band heavy hitting music.

In live versions of the song, the band has tuned down the strength and made an acoustic version. The best example of this is Across a Wire - Live in New York Disc 1. Although the volume of the song is different the meaning and lyrics does not differ in each version  My favorite lyrics from the song has to be:  "All my sins, I said that I would pay for them if I could come back to you"

Below are both versions of the Angels of the Silences

Recovering the Satellites version

Across A Wire version