REVIEW: The Black Crowes @ the Memorial Centre

This was my first Black Crowes show and to say I was bowled over would be an understatement. I had second row centre seats and they were AMAZING. I went to the show with a couple friends and Caitlin, whom I had introduced to the Crowes music over the past couple months. Both of us were hoping they would play "No Speak No Slave" and so we made a sign for it in the hopes they would take the hint! There was no need for the sign because they OPENED THE SHOW WITH IT! The two of us went completely berserk, shaking our asses and singing our lungs out. Marc Ford wailed like abanshee on the solo! Chris Robinson, as always, was dancing and there was a lot of interplay between him and Steve. From there, they hit us with the one-two punch of "Sting Me" (a personal favourite) and "Jealous Again". "She Gave Good Sunflower" was great and unexpected. "Another Roadside Tragedy" was totally funky and the guitar interplay between Marc and Rich Robinson was incredible. They really looked like they were having fun (Rich actually smiled, one of the first times ever!) up there.

"Ballad in Urgency" into "Wiser Time" was beautiful. I always love Chris and Rich's harmonising on the latter and they were bang on again. After Rich took a solo in WT, I held up my 'Rich for Prime Minister' sign which he saw and gave me a big smile and a nod. From there it was into the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" with Rich singing lead vocals (man, that guy has a great voice). "You Don't Miss Your Water" featured Chris on acoustic along with Rich and more great vocal harmonies between the two. "Thorn in My Pride" featured a mammoth intro jam with dueling guitars, a mid-song jam/Gorman drum solo (the man can play!) a fantastic solo from Marc Friggin' Ford and great vocals from Chris. "Soul Singing" was pretty as usual, strong background vocals from the ladies, but no jam.

The big surprise of the night for me (other than NSNS) was "By Your Side". I told my friends that if they played any song from that album, I really wanted it to be the title track. I loved watching Rich grind out the rhythm chords to this one. "Hard to Handle" was a total crowd pleaser with the crowd drowning out Chris during the chorus. "Remedy" almost blew the roof off the place with everybody grooving and Ford tearing off one of his best solos of the night (he and Rich were both on fire for the entire show). I was a bit sad that the encore was so short, just one song, but it was great. Rich and Mark totally playing off one another and smiling at each other the whole time. It was a very funky tune called "Around and Around". As they were exiting the stage, I held up my sign one more time and Rich saw it, smiled at me again, waved and nodded.

All in all it was 2+ hours of pure, rump-shaking rock and roll. Thanks to the Black Crowes for keeping it real and putting on one of the best shows I have ever seen.