The Black Crowes' concert at Manhattan's Irving Plaza Tuesday night was dubbed by the band the "Fan Appreciation Show" (500 tickets were given away with the purchase of their just-released album, By Your Side, at a pre-show record signing). Perhaps a better name for it should have been the "Crowes Appreciation Show." Hell, when the band came back on stage at the end of the evening for their encore, even lead singer Chris Robinson -- the male answer to waify Kate Moss (sans the fashion sense) -- was sporting a Crowes tour shirt.

Narcissism aside, the Atlanta sextet delivered a tightly seamed, rock-solid seventeen-song set of power rock and soulful gospel that carried on into the early morning. This show, the last on the Crowes' "Sho Nuff" club-date tour, was most likely a harbinger of things to come on the band's upcoming larger-venue "Souled Out" tour in support of the new album.

Although some of the songs on By Your Side lag, that doesn't stop the Black Crowes from delivering one of the hardest-hitting live shows in the pop world. For tonight's show, they stuck to a more soulful, gospel-driven set with a bounty of ballads and wholesome Crowes staples. While much of the set did outline some of the better tracks from By Your Side, even more selections came from 1992's The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, the group's second-highest-grossing album to date.

Opening with the always-popular "Remedy," the Crowes demonstrated from the get-go that the band was ready to show its fan appreciation. With other Southern Harmony offerings, such as "Sting Me," "Hotel Illness," "Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye" and "No Speak No Slave," the band loaded its holsters with the down-home grooves of the multiplatinum album to hold together what would have otherwise been an average Crowes set -- which still wouldn't have been that bad.

The Crowes' live performances have always been high quality because of the ensemble's tightness as a unit. Purists who may have been worried by the past year's firing of original Crowes' guitarist and backbone, Marc Ford, as well as the departure of original bassist Johnny Colt, realized they had nothing to fear, based on tonight's dynamite performance. Newbie bassist Sven Pipien filled Colt's shoes more than adequately. On the bass-heavy selections "High Head Blues" and the band's new single, "Kickin' My Heart Around," Pipien provided the steady hand that Colt used to furnish, but added a new swagger of aloofness to the material.

As for touring guitarist Audley Freed, well, Marc who? Freed is a spellbinding talent, who effectively contrasted the more melodic approach of lead guitarist Rich Robinson with his own hard-blues style. Together, Freed and Robinson sound frighteningly like Duane Allman and Dickey Betts. The heavy slide-guitar strut of "HorseHead" gave the two a chance to show off their chops. An irregularly extended "Thorn in My Pride" made room for Freed and Robinson to trade solos, treating the crowd to true slide-guitar prowess from the duo. But the oddly-elongated ballad suffered from distractions -- whoever heard of a drum solo in a ballad? The bouncy, silly-worded "Only A Fool" drowned in mediocrity, falling victim to its poorly-delivered lyrics and ill-timed melodic figures.

But there were more than enough strong numbers to bulldoze through the few stinkers. While "Hotel Illness" and "Thorn" dragged, the Crowes picked it back up again it with rockers such as "Blackberry" and "By Your Side," as well as the stoner-friendly "Wiser Time." The band wrapped things up wisely with the songs that put them on the map: "Hard to Handle," "She Talks to Angels" and "Jealous Again." Finishing the encore with "Virtue and Vice" -- off By Your Side -- The Crowes once again showed a packed house why they're allowed to call themselves "the most rock & roll rock & roll band in the world." They just keep on rocking. How can you not appreciate that?

JONAH FREEDMAN
(January 13, 1999)