To quote Adam Duritz from A Long December, "now the days go by so fast."I can't believe its been over 5 years since I saw the Counting Crows (or more accurately Adam and friends) at their secret show at the Shim Sham Club in New Orleans during Jazz Fest.

I can't believe I've been a Crows fan since 1994, since I saw them in the front row at a tiny little club on their first national tour supporting August and Everything After - it was the tour they booked before they realized that Mr Jones was going to blow up all over the radio/MTV, etc. It was amazing and I was hooked forever.

I've seen them more times than I can remember, wandering around the country over the years to see them play shows, on pretty much every tour they've ever had. They've even used one of my photos in one of their CDs. Yes. I love the Crows.

So when they went missing for a few years after their Hard Candy album and subsequent tours, it was with patience that I waited for the band to either pull it back together, or at least for Adam to put out a solo record. The wait was worth it.

The band went out on tour a couple of years ago with John Mayer, then followed it up with the excellent "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings", a record that evoked a little bit of every era of the Crows.. the singer-songwriter sway of August and Everything After, quite a bit of rock of Recovering the Satellites, a smatter of the studio-production-experimentation of This Desert Life with a dash of pop from Hard Candy.

And as much as I like the records, the live experience is even better. The band never overplays the "new" record, drawing from all albums and always playing crowd favorites. To top it off, they always experiment with the tracks, bringing out something a little different then what was recorded. I remember the first time I saw them I was frustrated that I couldn't sing along to the tracks I knew so well, but after a while the Crows taught me to appreciate bands who brought something different to the live experience. After all, if I just wanted to hear the record, I could pop it into my CD player.

Seeing them with Maroon 5 this last weekend was no different. The band shut the night down and it was pretty much a perfect night for an outdoor show, cool and breezy - something that Dallas doesn't give us that often in the summer.

The band seemed to be in sync with the evening, opting to focus on a more acoustic, pretty set. They played for over an hour - with 2-3 songs from every record, including the singles that everyone in the amphitheater wanted to hear. It was a great way to see one of my favorite bands, with my favorite person, and be reminded of some great times from the last decade and a half. I could tell that about 15k other people felt the same way.

And to complete the concert experience (like you needed more), after you see them you can even buy the show from livecountingcrows.com . The band's posting every show within a few weeks, and you can download them in whatever format you like, lossless or MP3. The band was good enough to let me tape the first few tracks of the set. If you like what you hear - head over to live counting crows and buy the whole set when its released, or one of the shows from earlier in the tour.

If you've never seen the band, take a friend, your girl, your guy, anyone and check them out the next time they come to your town. They're continuing to wander across America for the next month or so, then heading over to the UK for some shows with Ben Folds.

Oh, and get familiar with the records - it's so much better when you can sing along.

Live MP3 MP3s:
Le Ballet d'Or
Omaha
Richard Manuel is Dead

Labels: concerts, dallas, live mp3s, major, soundboard mp3s, starplex, tour dates