When it was announced in January of this year that The Black Crowes were taking a "hiatus" and that longtime drummer Steve Gorman had left the band, fans such as myself immediately thought the worst: that the hiatus was permanent, the fact that Steve left wasn't a good thing at all, and that it was a damn good thing I had seen the band in what could end up being their last two shows ever here in Boston back in October of last year.
TWICE AS HARD
Immediately after this, rumors began circulating that those last two shows had been recorded, and that they would make up a double live album to be released in 2002 at some point. "At some point" was today, August 20th. The songs are indeed culled from both of the Boston shows, despite the fact the liner notes simply state "recorded live during the 2001 tour."
STING ME
When I first saw the track list, I felt like I had been sent to both heaven and to hell at once. Most importantly, here in all it's glory, officially released for the first time, is a glorious eight and a half minute performance of Title Song, a cut originally recorded for the infamous "Tall Sessions" only to be left as a live rarity.
Besides Title Song, there was plenty to be happy about. Girl From a Pawnshop, Sometimes Salvation, Cursed Diamond, the list goes on and on and on. But there was a couple of bad things.
BY YOUR SIDE?
The hits are here in spades, which isn't bad and it was entirely expected. However, Jealous Again and By Your Side weren't performed in Boston at all, and therefore aren't to be found. In fact, the By Your Side album as a whole isn't represented at all, which is surprising given how regularly a song like Kickin My Heart Around was played by the band. Kickin is a much better song than the somewhat fun Thick N Thin, but the band still loves that first album of theirs, and they hate By Your Side.
Also not here is My Morning Song and Thorn in My Pride. Now, both of these songs were indeed very much extended by jams (My Morning Song featured a 4 minute interlude into a psychadelic reading of Whole Lotta Love before crashing back into MMS, while Thorn had a 18 minute jam session played before it both nights). However, what needs to be said is that they could have cut Morning Song to be JUST Morning Song without the WLL snippet. They also could have had Thorn on here without it being more than 7 or 8 minutes. Let's face it, the Crowes loved to jam onstage, so why try to represent their live act as anything else?
SOUL SINGING
OK, forget my problems with the tracklisting. What's done is done. Rich Robinson, the band's rhythm guitarist and chief songwriter, isn't going to go back and re-configure this album just for me. How do the songs they DID pick sound? Pretty damn good.
In my review of the Halloween night show (the second of the two), I called it the best live performance I've ever seen. And there's plenty here to back that up. As I previously mentioned, Girl From a Pawnshop is just absolutely gorgeous. Yes, it's a bit slow, but the end is just, WOW! I've really begun to love this song the last few months.
Wiser Time just SOUNDS like the road song it's introduced as by lead singer Chris Robinson (whose debut solo album comes out soon, this reviewer is skeptical with titles like "Katie Dear"), and let's face it, Soul Singing makes you sing out every single lyric with fire and passion and JOY. Hell, the band sounds most BORED with the hits, not the most excited, and even then, they still sound pretty damn happy to be playing.
SHE TALKS TO ANGELS
While this may not be as definitive as I would've liked, I'll still take it with a smile on my face. It's a damn fine live album, the production is top notch, the mix is great (you can actually hear crazy old Ed on the keyboards, my one complaint from being in the building for these shows was how badly he was mixed in), and you know what, the band just SOUNDS good.
Below is a tracklisting, with *'s indicating my picks for best performances.
DISC ONE
1.Midnight From the Inside Out*
2.Sting Me
3.Thick N Thin
4.Greasy Grass River
5.Sometimes Salvation
6.Cursed Diamond*
7.Miracle to Me
8.Wiser Time*
9.Girl From a Pawnshop*
10.Cosmic Friend*
DISC TWO
1.Black Moon Creeping
2.High Head Blues
3.Title Song********
4.She Talks to Angels
5.Twice as Hard
6.Lickin'
7.Soul Singin*
8.Hard to Handle
9.Remedy
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.