If you heard a tape of the Black Crowes’ first night at the Civic Theater on Tuesday, you might think it came from some hip FM rock station circa 1970-72. The Crowes’ show was lit up by a stack of covers, of which the Rolling Stones’ “Torn & Frayed” (from ‘72’s Exile on Main Street) was the newest. Since the show ran two hours there was also time for them to dive into their own catalogue, but the night left no doubt about which era of music makes the band feel most at home.
The Black Crowes at re-opened Civic Theatre on October 1. (Photo: Elsa Hahne)
They dove into the well from the start, opening with the Byrds’ “Lover of the Bayou”—a song that celebrates Louisiana in a perfectly trippy, end of the ‘60s way. The Crowes came back together last year after a two-year break; and if you haven’t seen them in a while, they’re the same, but different. Jackie Greene has taken Luther Dickinson’s place as co-lead guitarist, and the jams float more freely than ever before. Yet the Black Crowes will never be the Grateful Dead, since they’ll always sound Southern– their rhythm section is too well schooled in the Stax/Muscle Shoals style of funk. Still, a Crowes set these days is less about the flat-out rock numbers, more about flow and groove.
Still barefoot and rail-thin after all these years, singer Chris Robinson seemed relaxed and good natured (not always the case when I’ve seen the band play to less attentive audiences), and the band stuck a bunch of greatest hits into the set (“Sting Me,” “Twice as Hard”, “She Talks to Angels” and “Hard to Handle” were all played on Tuesday; “Jealous Again” and “Remedy” were likely being saved for Wednesday). But the peak of the set was a long sequence that allowed the band to get deep into the voodoo, with Pink Floyd’s “Lucifer Sam” following their own “Evil Eye” and “Black Moon Creeping.” With plenty of ominous feel and swampy slide guitar, these tracks showed the current lineup doing what it does best: Going off the script and letting the spontaneous interplay happen. Founding guitarist Rich Robinson’s grittier style meshed well here with Greene’s spacier leads—a big change from the last lineup, where Rich tended to lay back and let Dickinson do the heavy work.
Celebration broke through again, with another trio of covers at night’s end: “Hard to Handle” (the Otis Redding tune that was the Crowes’ first hit) segued into “Hush” (written by Joe South but owned by Deep Purple); and the first encore was “Medicated Goo”—a great Traffic song that’s seldom played these days by anybody, including its author Steve Winwood. Their love for these songs, especially the last one, was clear—and like the guy in the Traffic song with his home-grown remedy, the Black Crowes are selling something good and old-fashioned.
A word about the new Civic: if you’ve been to any of the East Coast clubs run by the same company (like the Bowery in New York and the Sinclair in Boston), you’ll recognize the look and feel; the idea seems to be maintaining an elegant ambiance while keeping the floor open for dancing. The Civic is still having some kinks with the sound: It’s great if you’re standing well within the main room, but toward the back it’s all mud. A lot of the Crowes crowd hadn’t discovered there’s a balcony with theater seats; not only is the view great up there but the sound, to these ears, was cleaner than it was on the floor.
