Maroon 5 and Counting Crows Bring Together Kids and Their Parents

Rare is the tour capable of both gobbling up the allowance money of teens and inflating the credit card balances of grown-ups, but the double-bill of '90s rockers Counting Crows and 21st-century superstars Maroon 5 seems poised to empty pockets of khakis and short shorts alike all summer long.

The Friday night tour launch at Virginia Beach's Verizon Wireless Amphitheater brought out tons of children in Maroon 5 gear accompanied by parents wearing Counting Crows t-shirts. Both demographics were eager to see their favorite Adam: Levine, in the case of the kids, Duritz for the adults.

Maroon 5 performed all of the hits the kiddies love, including "Harder to Breathe" and "This Love" from their 2002 debut Songs About Jane and "If I Never See Your Face Again" from last year's It Won't Be Soon Before Long. However, the group did manage a few concessions to mature attendees: "The Sun" included a snippet of Sly and the Family Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay" and a cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" queued up "She Will Be Loved."

After a mini-exodus of the youngsters, Counting Crows dug into their most melancholy material ("A Long December," "Colorblind"), with sunnier bits such as "Mr. Jones" and "Hanginaround" mixed in. Duritz, who hobbled through the crowd on a cane before the show, bounced around for the duration of the set, which was strong, but truncated due to a late start. "Holiday in Spain" was the sole encore, and although most of the babies were long gone, Duritz saw fit to close the show with "our lullaby."

Set Lists:

Maroon 5
"Harder to Breathe"
"If I Never See Your Face Again"
"Makes Me Wonder"
"Tangled"
"The Sun"
"Can't Stop"
"Won't Go Home Without You"
"Shiver"
"Kiwi"
"Wake Up Call"
"Nothing Lasts Forever"
"Sunday Morning"
"Little of Your Time"
"Back at your Door"
"She Will Be Loved"
"This Love"

Counting Crows
"Le ballet d'Or"
"Have You Seen Me Lately?"
"Hanging Tree"
"Mr. Jones"
"Colorblind"
"Cowboys"
"Good Time"
"Round Here
"St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream"
"A Long December"
"Hanginaround"
"Holiday in Spain"

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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