Colored Lights and Birthday Cakes

August 8, 2018

 

With Jenna and the band.

Live

Boom Forest

Colored Lights and Birthday Cakes

Anyone that knows me at all knows that my all-time favorite band is Counting Crows. Back in 1993 when they released their first album, I recall buying it on the first day it was released, not because I knew anything about the band, but because I was a huge fan of singer Maria McKee who sang back-up vocals on “August and Everything After” and I wanted to hear her. Suffice it to say that album has since become one of my all-time favorites and I went to see Counting Crows on their first national tour in early 1994 in Ft. Lauderdale.

 

Fast forward twenty five years and I have at least one show on every single US tour the band has had since then with the total number of shows that I have attended reaching the triple digits. Of course when they announced they were touring this summer (with Live for the third time; 1997, 2000), I knew that I had to make my way to see them once again. 

With the Dude 

Live

I am much busier these days than in those carefree days when I could see many multiple shows on a single tour, so I was only going to go see the show in West Palm Beach at the Coral Sky Amphitheatre, but as luck would have it my friend Nicole contacted me and said she had a spare front row ticket for their show in St. Pete and I had to rethink my entire plan. 

Nicole

Live

Having just seen the band at the Innings Festival earlier this year and the fact that the shows were once again mid-week made Kathy opt out of going, so I made plans to fly one way to Tampa to catch the show there and then drive a rental car the next day to West Palm for the second show. I love St. Pete and I arrived early enough to stop by Cigar City Brewing before heading to my hotel.

 

I met my friend Nicole for dinner before the show, she is one of many people that I have met simply because we share a love for the band and she was in the middle of seeing a six show stretch traveling to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. We had hung out at other shows, most memorably at a show in Indianapolis some years ago, but it was really nice to see her again.

 

The show was amazing, to celebrate their 25 years of existence, Adam decided he would add spoken stories explaining many of the songs. The band has always had a storytelling element to their shows but this was much more scripted and planned and I thought it was a fantastic addition. I always enjoy it when a band has stage banter and this was all that and more. 

I was really pleasantly surprised by Live, I had seen them a lot, especially back in 1997 and 2000, and this was easily the best performance that I have ever seen them good. They haven’t really had many hits since back in the 90s but based on this show they should, they were truly impressive. For an opening act, they were given a decent amount of time for their set, they played thirteen songs including all of their most well-known songs.

Live

 

Counting Crows proved once again why they should be the headliner, they played a nice full set that was really aimed at long-time fans, the stories were an excellent addition and they all seemed in good spirits and in fine form. The summer tours like this are always a little more structured than I would like, but they still remain one of the best live bands ever.

For the second show, I drove pretty much straight through directly to the venue because I had passes for the meet and greet and to watch the sound check, which I always enjoy, especially watching the behind the scenes of the band working during the sound check. I met my friend Jenna at the venue. Jenna and I worked together at Reef Relief close to thirty years ago and I don’t think I had even seen her in probably twenty years so it was a really fun reunion. I had some other friends at the show as well including a group from Key West and my friend Janien who I have been interacting with on the Counting Crows message boards for twenty years but never had met in person. 

Sound Check

Boom Forest

Jenna and Michael 

Michael and Janein

It was a really fun night once again. So great to see old friends and meet new ones. It was Jenna’s first Counting Crows show ever and I think she had a good time, we again had really good seats in the third row, which helped. This was Adam's birthday show and the opening act, Boom Forest, delivered a cake to the stage and the band and crowd sang Happy Birthday.  It was yet another amazing concert, twenty-five years and counting and I still love seeing this band as much as anything that I do. Here’s to twenty-five more.

Jenna and Michael