Counting Crows: Across A Wire: Live In New York : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Is a young California band with only two studio albums to its credit worthy of a double live CD containing no new songs (save for the obligatory hidden track)? If nothing else, the Counting Crows' Across a Wire: Live in New York City is an extraordinary act of hubris. The album captures the band in electric and acoustic sets recorded for MTV and VH1 during a 1997 tour; its release was prompted by the flood of unauthorized Crows concert tapes crowding the bootleg market. The sextet has a well-deserved reputation for treating its studio recordings as mere skeletons for in-the-moment concert performances, and Across a Wire makes a case for the Crows as a dynamic live act.

Still, there are only a handful of musical revelations here. On the acoustic disc, a mesh of stringed instruments, accordion and brushes turns "Angels of the Silences" into a hymnlike jug-band reverie, and the electric disc provides nine minutes' worth of whisper-to-a-wail dynamics on "Round Here." Otherwise, the most significant alterations are the tortured improvisations of singer Adam Duritz, and – guess what? – he's fed up with fame. "We all want to be big, big, big, big, big stars ... but then we get second thoughts about that," he mutters on "Mr. Jones," which also includes a lyric from the Byrds' "So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star." On the two versions of "Round Here," Duritz despairs, "I have trouble acting normal." Yet he has no trouble releasing an album in conjunction with the two music-video channels most responsible for making him a pop icon. Consider that before you begin to feel sorry for poor Adam.