Stacked Actors

It’s no secret that I heart the Black Crowes, therefore you all know what I’m going to say.

But really…this time was an exception.  I felt like the boys were seriously on top of their game last Sunday night.

The Crowes are on tour in support of their release, Warpaint (click here to see my review), which was released earlier this year and you can tell they dig the new material.  Luther Dickenson is a fantastic and fitting addition to the group dynamic and really added a pep in the group’s step if you ask me.

They started with a cut off the new album “Movin’ on Down the Line”, reminisent of the airy tunes from “Three Snakes.”  Chris Robinson came out of the blocks as vocally pure as ever (amazing considering they’ve been at it for 20+ years) and sounded much better than the last show at the Ryman in ‘07.  They moved into an amazing riff based jam which (warm up) which morphed into a fan favorite set of songs including cuts off of “Southern Music” (IMHO the Crowe’s best album), “By Your Side” and then topped off with a killer version of “Twice as Hard” (with the extended riff at the end…love it!) and then Chris KILLED “Seeing Things” (both songs off of the first album “Shake Your $ Maker”).

From there the Crowes began to show off their dirty southern-fried cuts off of “Warpaint” with a great version of “Walk Believer Walk” showing off Luther’s slide amazingness then into was what I could consider the highlight of the show for me with “Oh Josephine.” It was perfectly executed and the extended instrumental part at the end brought the song to a serious peak.

The next two songs brought drummer Steve Gorman from behind the kit to play Djembe on “Woah Mule” and to play the marching bass drum on “God’s Got It.”  After which the boys went into the Joe Cocker cover tune “Space Captain” which the crowd so lovely responded with the appropriate “woohs and ahhs.” Next they went into the boogie tune “Downtown Money Waster” which was extended into “Thorn in My Pride” and quickly turned into the Steve Gorman show with a very very very solid drum solo.  They closed the 1:45 set with “Wounded Bird” again giving the crowd as much boogie as they could handle.

To cap off the night, the boys busted into an Allman Brother’s cover “Dreams” with former BC guitarist Audley Freed joining the group to play some slide.

Overall, the Crowes really delivered and the addition of a new guitarist and keyboard player has really revived the group.  The pre-show festivities were fun, the crowd was HYPE but not pushy, the Ryman staff was corteous as always…This show will go into the Stacked Actor top 10 concerts list and will go down as one of the (if not THE) best Black Crowes concert I’ve seen.

4.5 out of 5 stars.