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E5: Elvis (and Adam and Eric) Went To Hollywood
379 Plays2 years ago
As the Banshee Tour continues, Eric takes this time to talk about his experience attending the semi-private Troubadour (Hollywood) kickoff show last month (June 5, 2023).
https://www.countingcrows.com/show/the-troubadour
This got Chris thinking, "I wonder how a 500 capacity Hollywood CC show in 2023 compares to a 500 capacity CC show in 1994". So we review the Whisky a Go Go show in Hollywood on March 16, 1994.
https://www.countingcrows.com/show/whiskey-a-go-go
For bootleg recordings of CC shows go to and register at
Email us
SullivanStreetPC@protonmail.com
Recommended
Transcript
Episode Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Just a quick introduction to Episode 5 of Sullivan Street, where we continue our Banshee Season Tour coverage. In this episode, I finally give my review of the Banshee Season Tour Kickoff Show, sponsored by SiriusXM back in early June. We also spend this time to review a classic almost 30 years ago, Counting Crow's show in Hollywood at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in this episode of Sullivan Street.
00:00:32
Speaker
away
Tour Kickoff Strategy
00:00:45
Speaker
SiriusXM sponsored a kickoff show, I guess, of the tour about a week. Well, we said about a week before the tour, it seemed to have been thrown together fairly quickly because they announced it suddenly. You got that impression, too, right? Yeah, certainly there wasn't much notice. There's not always notice for things like this, but yeah, it did seem like there was not.
00:01:13
Speaker
either was thrown together quickly or they had it very heavily under wraps. Yeah, I got the feeling that the management, Crow's management just talked to them and somehow got together. Oh, this would be, this would help everybody. It would give SiriusXM some content.
00:01:30
Speaker
that they would have this 90-minute, I guess it was in the end, concert that they can play exclusively and get people excited. And then, right, it would get people maybe sell some tickets, right? That was the idea, too. Right. That people would
Ticket Availability Challenges
00:01:45
Speaker
just do it on Series M, XM, and promote the tour. So they made a big deal that it was in the Troubadour. Now,
00:01:52
Speaker
just a little bit of background. I don't know a lot about live venues. I am not originally from LA. Like I said before, I'm from the East Coast. I also, from Philadelphia, also lived in New York City a bit and near DC, I have some connections and family connections. So the Troubadour is a famous venue. I know they talked about how Elton John, I guess it was played there or something and a few other famous acts. So I,
00:02:19
Speaker
Well, it's pretty small. It fits about 500 people. Then you can imagine that people connected to SiriusXM and other friends of the band, etc. Well, they're going to
Personal Ticket Experience
00:02:31
Speaker
get tickets. Then how many were available to the public? My guess is maybe 200 at most. That was maybe 250, but at least half was probably to corporate connections and band connections.
00:02:46
Speaker
So when I heard about this, I saw that, oh, I said, oh, the tickets are going to be available. I went online to try to get them. And by the way, you were talking about pre-sales. When I was trying to get pre-sale tickets before to the LA shows, it was no problem whatsoever. I mean, I'm sure there's some scalpers that are buying things, but I was getting good seats fairly easily. The Troubadour had a weird website. And the one thing that's totally not clear to me is that I click
00:03:16
Speaker
to purchase tickets before like they want to release or a second after. Because I guess if you went before, it would put you into some queue or at least, but then someone told me they would randomize the queue. So
Demand and Venue Insight
00:03:28
Speaker
I wasn't sure if I got into the queue properly or not. But what I do know is that it's sold out in six minutes. I think, gosh, you know, I might've told you, I think that maybe only 100
00:03:40
Speaker
40 or 50 ticket well that was but you could buy up to two tickets so right maybe there was only like 150 for sale or something like that or 150 spots times two Yeah, and I was like number, you know 350 so I wasn't even close and I was kind of surprised I was like jeez I didn't know there was you know 500 diehard crows fans that are gonna buy tickets within 10 minutes Although I guess it could have been but it couldn't be scalpers either really the way it was worked you had to bring your ID hmm
00:04:10
Speaker
uh if you were purchasing it or if a scalper went they would have to be your date to the uh to the show that's that's a pretty different dating show yeah so it's interesting because it's part of ones we forget right is like um at this band's like lowest sort of point they've been most of them playing like several thousand seat theaters you know over the last over their career right so they've played some small shows here and there but a 500 seat venue is
00:04:39
Speaker
It's a hot ticket.
Acquiring a Ticket: A Reddit Story
00:04:40
Speaker
It's a hot ticket for this band, even at this stage, you know? It's good to make sure that they are still that, but it still makes sense. That's definitely, that's probably the smallest venue
00:04:53
Speaker
That's smaller than any venue I've seen the whole band in in probably a solid 15 years unless I can imagine them. Yeah, as I said, as you said, even in there, I mean, I guess some of those shows that they played when they were doing shim sham, I don't know the capacity of those. Those are smaller in the Outlaw Roadshow, like secret shows were smaller, but like the whole band even.
00:05:13
Speaker
Cause it's promotional stuff. And so the last time I saw anything close to that small was probably Irving Plaza for somewhere under Wonderland, but Irving Plaza is still like a thousand or so people. Um, I think it's gotta go back to when they were promoting Saturday nights and Sunday mornings that I saw them in like a full venue, a full band.
00:05:33
Speaker
playing at a venue that's that small. Yeah, no, I think you're right. That makes sense. So it was funny. So I don't know when we started this podcast five, six weeks ago. And then shortly after that, I saw this. And I was like, well, this is a sign. I live near LA.
00:05:50
Speaker
I don't know. We're all just telling you, you need to go to this concert. I'm full into that. But then I couldn't get tickets. So I was like, geez. So then someone posted on Reddit that day that they had tickets available or one extra ticket.
Connections at the Show
00:06:05
Speaker
And it's funny because I'm very skeptical. I don't want to be scammed.
00:06:10
Speaker
I had a little back and forth with the gentleman. His name is Patrick. It ends up that he was not even a Die Hard Crows fan. He just heard about it or got alert. He's actually a really big live music fan and loves that venue and gets notices about certain kind of concerts. And something came on and he
00:06:31
Speaker
Suddenly got it and was lucky in the queue and he bought a ticket for him and his wife and he said his wife Is not a particular crows fan, but also doesn't necessarily like general admission. There you go Because right, you don't know where to sit or whatever and it was a weekday and she's like I can't be bothered but yeah I just got a good vibe and it's interesting because I met Patrick and thank you so much Patrick for selling me the ticket and not Trying to overcharge me for it
00:07:00
Speaker
And yeah, a shame I didn't see him after. And as I said, I had to, yeah, when I went in, I kind of lost them and then didn't, because I wanted to buy him a drink to thank him. I also wanted to know... Hopefully he'll be at one of the shows in the fall that you go to. Yeah, he gave me some good suggestions, which I don't have here, about some other bands to listen to. He's like, oh, it seems like you listen to a lot of the same stuff. I have some more modern things for you to listen to. And he actually gave some pretty good
00:07:23
Speaker
suggestions to me. I forgot to reach out. I did it last night. I didn't hear from him. I wanted to hear what he thought about the show as a casual fan. So yes, I went to the show there.
00:07:39
Speaker
It did feel semi private. As I said, I did get this feeling that a lot of the people there were connected to Sirius or the bands and there was even a couple of celebrities.
Celebrity Sightings
00:07:48
Speaker
The other thing I was thinking I just talked to him before this was that
00:07:55
Speaker
a Count of Crows fan, Graham, who hosted the Crawling Around My Brain podcast. I had just talked to him about a week before, just on a Zoom about the Count of Crows. And I remember thinking, I wonder if he's going to be, oh no, I think he told me he was going to be at the show. And I said, oh, I wonder if I'll see him. And I looked to the right of me and I said, I think that's him. I only met him via Zoom before. So it was kind of good to talk about that. And, you know, whether you believe in fate or whatever, it was neat. And you could kind of bond about that.
00:08:25
Speaker
The one good thing about running into him was he mentioned to me that he was at this famous Italian restaurant next door, I guess they call it, what, a red tablecloth, you know, or the red tablecloth Italian place. And he goes, oh, it's kind of homestyle, but a lot of celebrities go and it's hard to get. And then he mentioned to me, he's like, oh, there was at least
00:08:46
Speaker
two or three celebrities there, including Cindy Crawford. I said, whoa, that's cool. And Bill Simmons, who I guess is the number one sportscaster and sports podcaster now by salary, he goes, oh yeah. And I listened to him. He's actually a big kind of crows fan.
00:09:02
Speaker
And he goes, Oh, I'm sure they're here, because that's probably why they were there. And he actually pointed them out to me, which I'll just say now, because this is one of my favorite parts of the story, that because I wouldn't know, right, it's weird, because of this kind of pseudo VIP thing.
00:09:19
Speaker
not only
Intimacy of the Venue
00:09:20
Speaker
was it kind of open because it was such a small show, but I guess they actually gave me, and this comes up later, they actually gave me like a pass that said like VIP, not just the lanyard, I have that too. Right. Because that was like promotional, like, oh, everybody gets this lanyard. But I also got another thing on my hand that said like VIP. And Graham even said something, he goes, Well, is it
00:09:39
Speaker
It seems like they're just giving this to everybody. Well, I found out later they didn't. And I'm not sure why I got one if I might have followed somebody who was a VIP. Maybe their fans. Maybe their fans. The fans of Sullivan Street.
00:09:53
Speaker
Yeah, so I could have went up there. But one interesting thing is, we pointed out, he goes, oh, in case you're curious, that's where Cindy Crawford is. And I looked at her in the back. I said, oh, wow, that is Cindy Crawford. She was the number one supermodel when I went to college, same time as when the Counting Crows were big. And I always thought she was a great supermodel. But the best part about Cindy Crawford being there
00:10:16
Speaker
And this came up a little later is that Adam must have known now whether they talk later before or because I don't think you would notice her from the stage even though it wasn't that far away. But during the line of Mr. Jones,
00:10:31
Speaker
She's perfect for you. There's got to be somebody for me. He points at Cindy Crawford, which nobody, but nobody got that unless you knew that she was there and you wouldn't have known that she was there, but she- Just an inside joke. Yes. And, but when he did it, he was hugging and winking at Dan. Like basically, cause Dan, you know, right? He's just like hugging Dan and hey, she's perfect for you, Dan. Cindy Crawford's perfect for you.
00:11:01
Speaker
As I'll mention later, I actually got to talk to Dan a little bit and he was very happy I told him that story because he remembered kind of Adam going out of his way to sing that line and kind of hug him while doing it, but he did not know that Cindy Crawford was in the audience.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah,
Audience Interactions
00:11:19
Speaker
so I do. It was just for Adam. It was just for Adam. Or maybe he would have mentioned it to Dan later. But Dan told me he did not know at the time. So that was pretty cool. And it was fun, kind of funny to see Cindy. I hadn't looked at her that much. But a couple of times, it looks like she got into, I mean, she knew the singles. I don't think she was a hardcore fan. But it was kind of neat to see her get into like Rain King. And I'm not sure about hanging around. I forgot if she was still there. So how close were you? Were you like in, were you pretty close? Because I knew small rooms.
00:11:47
Speaker
So it probably weren't fighting for the front, but I'm telling you it felt even smaller than 500 and maybe a hundred could fit at the top It just felt like it was like a 300 so I guess I think I saw me on one of the video You know, I was in front of Dan on I was on that I usually I'm on the Bryson side I was on the dance side and I want to say I
00:12:08
Speaker
I was like third or fourth row. But the interesting thing is that, so I think I told you on the Ireland show, I was probably the closest ever. I think I was officially second row, but I was right in the front. Like I was second row right in front of Adam. I could have had first row if I moved over a bit, general admission. But the interesting thing about this Troubadour show, there is no gap between
00:12:34
Speaker
the audience and the stage. Right. It's like stage. It's right. A club venue, right? Like you're basically pressed up against the stage. So I guess if I was officially third row or fourth row in front of Dan, it still felt that even though he wasn't that close that like Adam that almost I could touch Adam, even though that's not true. We're physically closer than again. Yes. Like Jones Beach last night, right? Like there's a there's a gap between the stage. So I was second row, but
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, I could have theoretically been, and there was actually kind of a gap between the first row and even the rail, so I was pretty close, but if I've been close to the general admission venue before, it's been a bit, but that's much closer to them. That's much more like visceral. Yeah, I felt that I could touch his guitar. I'm not sure that I actually could or thought of it. You know what I mean? I'm just thinking it felt that way.
00:13:28
Speaker
of Dan's guitar that I was that close to him and you could see, you know, whatever. I mean, I guess I could see it in Ireland, but, you know, you almost felt, I don't know, the sweat from Adam's forehead was magnified as he was running around. So that was, you know, I had, we can talk about the set list in a bit.
00:13:49
Speaker
It's funny you mentioned about the Adam moment. There was a, you know, it's funny, I want to make con, you know, you want to kind of make eye contact a couple of times when you're that close, just to say like, I definitely know Adam Durritt saw me like he, it wasn't just, he looked in my direction. We made eye contact. And I want to say I made eye contact with him 10 times.
Performance Reflections
00:14:07
Speaker
And when I did, even though when I'm really in the zone, it was so happy because it was such a unique and special show, rare show.
00:14:16
Speaker
I almost feel after I, if I make eye contact him with a second or two, I almost look away because I feel like guilty a little bit that I'm getting too much Adam attention. I know it's not about me, but you know what I mean? Like I'm almost like, no, I don't want to make him feel like I'm staring at him or something like that. So a couple of seconds is cool. And then I almost, but I feel the same way about.
00:14:36
Speaker
even mouthing the lyrics sometimes when you're that close because I know a couple of those shows like when The Suite came out that I knew almost like so much about The Suite compared to the people around me and where you kind of want to enjoy him singing it but then you kind of want to sing along and part of me wants to show him that yes people do know The Suite and love it but then you don't want to come across as some wild stalker either. I mean he knows the words too so I think he's okay with you knowing the words.
00:15:05
Speaker
No, and I try to always try to sing, I'm very conscious of this, because I have kind of a loud voice. I try to be very careful about like mouthing words, unless he's basically, like, if we're all screaming, yeah, in Mr. Jones, I will sing that full voice, you know, but I will try to be very...
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of times I end up mouthing them without actually saying that. You know what I mean? Yeah, so yeah, sometimes it's that quiet. Yeah, that's what that's what I'm doing. Or I'm just yeah, not even. And so we can see so I almost want to show like, you know, this song and I love this part, but I want to hear you sing it, not me. Right? It's part of it too, right? As you do want to let me
00:15:40
Speaker
If you love counting crows, you probably love hearing what Adam Duritz does to songs. And so, yeah, you want to expect, like, eh, I'm curious how he's going to sing this tonight. But there is one part near which cracked me up that there were definitely a couple of times he looked at me in some lyrics and there were some lyrics that hit a little more. I'll talk about what song I thought was excellent. But the one that cracks me up is he definitely stared at me the entire time. And it was just me when he said,
00:16:06
Speaker
We spent all day getting sober on the hanging around, like watching, you know, hiding from daylight, watching TV. All right. How many drinks did you have, Eric? It's funny because no, I basically do not drink anymore. And I did not drink during that show. But certainly I spent a lot of time in my 20s, early 30s being hungover. Unfortunately, I tend to get bad hangovers compared to my friends, even if I don't drink too much.
00:16:33
Speaker
So I was like, okay, I'm seeing, he recognizes this. He recognizes how many days I lost. He somehow understands me. Yeah, exactly. But it was funny, because it wasn't just for a second. That was the whole line. I was like, almost embarrassed. I was like, how does he know that? So okay, so did, I just wanted to make sure, okay, well, I'll talk about talking to a couple of band members, but we'll, let's get into, because you did get to hear the,
00:17:00
Speaker
Um, so there was 15, 15 songs, which was, uh, five, as we said, five songs shorter than usual. I think that was clearly, I don't think that was, and I know Adam said he was recovering from COVID. It kind of hinted that it was thrown together pretty quickly. Um, we could question the set list, but I think the 15 songs were clearly, um, that was an agreement ahead of time. Like it was perfect. Yeah.
00:17:25
Speaker
Yeah,
Technical Difficulties
00:17:26
Speaker
they basically played about 90 minutes. And it's interesting, the serious for whatever reason, the serious listing showed an hour and then they blew past that. And I was like, I thought they were going to cut the show down initially when I started listening to it because I knew it was longer than an hour. But yeah, it's they clearly were. Yeah, it's a shorter show. What they also very clearly did was cut out acoustic songs, I guess, on the assumption of it's a club and it's chatty. You know, you never know when it's it's.
00:17:54
Speaker
You just you probably want to plow ahead and play kind of a louder set. Yep. And a little bit more like the way they play maybe a festival. Yeah. And he said that's why there's going to be no encore. Did they did they keep the banter in the I wanted to ask you they cut. They if there was any banter, there was one line of before butterfly in reverse and that was about it. So.
00:18:15
Speaker
Okay. If there was banter, that may have been one thing they did cut out. Okay. And there wasn't a lot of it, but they did say, Oh, one thing we didn't talk about, which was so interesting. We talked about the venue is that, um, let's see if I get the script, that Dan's guitar.
00:18:33
Speaker
stopped working during Goodnight Elizabeth. Oh, which was the first song, right? Yep. So the instrumental part. Oh, no, sorry. Emmys. It was Emmys guitar. Emmys guitar went out during Goodnight Elizabeth. So
00:18:48
Speaker
If I remember correctly, they extended Dan's part. If I remember correctly, it's a little longer version than it should have been because they were hoping to get Emi's guitar back working. And it was the first song and you could almost see them annoyed and then almost kind of laughing about it.
00:19:08
Speaker
And then, but it didn't get fixed right away. It took a couple of minutes. They couldn't figure out what was going on. At least it felt like a couple of minutes, like two or three or maybe even longer. So, yeah, if I remember correctly, right. They and they brought right at the end of that song and these guitar started working again. So that was kind of
Setlist Strategy
00:19:27
Speaker
interesting. Yeah. And I will say, I love that song as an opener. I like it's a thing that only this band would do or very few other bands certainly would do.
00:19:37
Speaker
that we're gonna play a concert that's gonna be broadcast on a radio station. And we are gonna open with a slow song that we play for 11 minutes or so. That includes a velvet underground song in the middle. I just love the like, again, even when they play that song a lot, but it was still like, A, I love that. I think it's so cool as an opener in the way it kind of sets a tone. And just to be like, yeah,
00:20:04
Speaker
We're doing a radio show, but we're opening with an 11-minute song. It's still them. Yeah, so if it was about 11 minutes, right, so if it was, my guess is that it would have been a seven-minute song, and then it got extended four minutes because... No, it might have been 13 or 14 then, if that's the case, because if you look at the times on nugs, it generally clocks in 10, 11 minutes at this
Live Energy Appreciation
00:20:29
Speaker
point. Okay, interesting.
00:20:33
Speaker
Do I have any comments about the actual performance and set list? I'll just mention a couple. I guess as someone who saw them a couple times in 2022, not too much stood out, except I do want to say, I don't know how it came across when you heard it, but at least being there,
00:20:52
Speaker
I thought clearly the best performance was recovering the satellites. So not only do I love that song, but they were just into it. Something about it just seeing the energy of that song was interesting because again, that's obviously not a single or or anything, but the way they played it anyway, it even.
00:21:10
Speaker
Graham, now I know he likes that album, but he felt the same thing I did during that song. One, he didn't feel as much, you know, I know he doesn't really love the suite. Now, one interesting thing I guess I want to say, I thought Bobby and the Rat Kings was great. Now you said something about that they could end the song.
00:21:27
Speaker
I wish that- I could see that in an encore. Maybe I wouldn't end with it. And it is such, I mean, this is one of my soap boxes, but Bobby and the Rat Kings is such a great live song if you let it be a great live song to you. Because it's kind of fun, it has the interesting,
00:21:49
Speaker
And then I mean, don't forget for hardcore crows fans, if that's whether that's your favorite song or not, it's about being like obsessed with this with a band and that they'll make you and you can escape all your troubles, even though you know, it's not going to escape your troubles for a couple hours. And
Audience Silence
00:22:09
Speaker
and it's a fun and I'll bring this up some other time, but but.
00:22:14
Speaker
We did it a little bit in the UK show. There were some fans around me that really were into them. But when it goes like, duh, duh, duh. And if the whole audience knew to clap at the right thing, you can clap at the duh, duh. Oh, yeah.
00:22:31
Speaker
And a bunch of us did it at some of the shows, and it brings even more energy to it. It's really a lot of fun. I wish we could start something with the clapping. I feel like the UK crowds are going to be better at that. Every time I listen to bootlets like the Irish crowd, like in Ireland, they're going to get that clapping just right. Yeah, they did. And it even added more to the show.
00:22:53
Speaker
The one thing
Local Song Connections
00:22:54
Speaker
I wanted to ask you, just looking down at the set list here, what was the crowd like for Colorblind? Because when I've been in general admission venues the last couple of years, the talking during Colorblind is brutal. And I was curious in a room like this, if that carried over. Luckily, no. But I think you're right. I think it's just that this particular audience
00:23:18
Speaker
kind of knew it was a VIP show and they were pretty, there wasn't a lot of nonsense going on. And I don't think there were like casual fans, right? You either had to be connected to Sirius and you kind of thought it was special or you were in that 150 or 200 that bought tickets online in the first five minutes. You didn't have the drunk eye on a Friday night. Although sometimes industry shows sometimes you do get that thing of like there are a bunch of people who are not
00:23:44
Speaker
not fans and they're here because their boss told them to go or whatever. But I'm guessing again, maybe in a really small place like that, people were heads up and up to go like I should shut up right now. You're right. At least they didn't strike me. The only other thing I do want to mention, because this will come up when I talk about missed opportunities that long December was a bit of a treat, partly because he mentions Hollywood.
00:24:12
Speaker
a
Vocal Performance Impact
00:24:13
Speaker
couple of times. He's like, I'm actually a sucker for playing the song of the, you know, that closely, or at least mentions, right? Crow's songs love to mention place. And when they mention the, like I said, like watching a DC show and they mentioned the Chesapeake Bay, I love that. The crowd loved that he mentioned, you know, Hollywood a few times in long December. Did you notice anything else about that? I remember you said that you thought the performance came across pretty well. Yeah, that sounded great. It got me excited for the tour.
00:24:40
Speaker
I was like, oh, I'm ready. I'm ready to go see them now. I'm feeling, uh, this sounded good. I thought, you know, Adam was talking about his voice because he'd been sick a little bit, apparently. Yes. Yes. He said it was a non-COVID illness. Um, oh yeah, Miami was also good. Um, yeah, I had a little mark that hanging around in Miami were also pretty good, but, but nothing,
00:25:04
Speaker
Miami, of course, is a good crescendo. I mean, that used to be one of my favorite songs to see live. I guess I've seen it so much now that I'm not as excited about it, but clearly it's a good concert song. Even for casual fans, I think Miami is also a song that even people that don't know Miami like it to hear it live. Right. There's a great dynamic to it as a live... There's a reason why they play it a lot. It is a real dynamic to it.
00:25:30
Speaker
I was actually thinking, I have a note in here. I was apparently thinking about this while I was listening to that show. Miami and Sullivan Street are kind of similar sentiments. They're kind of songs about knowing a sense of foreboding in a relationship, like being within a relationship and knowing it will end.
Missed Song Opportunities
00:25:49
Speaker
It's kind of what Miami's about. It's pretty much what Sullivan Street's about. I just had never made that connection before and I just had this note here while I was listening to that.
00:25:57
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I think a good a good show you'd and again, I think they were probably a little restricted on hey, we're playing this for the radio. Um, you know, yeah, you know, I think it's the only thing I want to say, but again, you said if they're only going to play 15 songs, it restricts the set list even more. Um, and if he really was, it did look by the way that he was recovering.
00:26:22
Speaker
from an illness. It just came across that way, even though he sang well. If you just looked at him, not that he looked bad, but he looks like someone who had recovered from a few days ago, right? Someone, as you said, about 60 years old. So I did believe that. So maybe they didn't get to prepare too much. They probably wouldn't have done, maybe, I think you even said, they probably wouldn't have done additional preparation anyway. But because it was such a,
00:26:44
Speaker
special venue and maybe people wanted something more for heart. It certainly was not a set list that like this was the most amazing private shim-sham show and they did stuff that they never did and it was so no it was kind of this I guess you know
00:27:00
Speaker
maybe in some ways generic, typical of what they've been playing, but just to kick off the tour. And I'm fine with that. I do think though, that especially because he used to live in LA, and he mentioned that a couple of times and he used to live in Hollywood, right? There should have been, it would have been cool if you bought one, just one bonus song in there for the show. And
Venue Layout Experience
00:27:22
Speaker
I think I wrote you and said,
00:27:24
Speaker
Like he could have done good night LA. He could have done Elvis went to Hollywood. He could have done Los Angeles. And what I forgot about until yesterday, there's also a, which I wouldn't expect him to sing this, but there was one of the unreleased tracks from Saturday night, Sunday mornings or bonus tracks. Sunday morning LA. Sunday morning LA. So if he had played one of those. That would have been a big, that would have been a real deep cut.
00:27:47
Speaker
I'm not sure they've ever played that song. I wish I was a girl. I'm going down to Hollywood. I'm going down to Hollywood. They're going to make a movie. You could have done that. Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
I'm with you. There was maybe more opportunity to have kind of a little bit more of a Hollywood moment. I'm not greedy. I would have just wanted one of those. For the hardcore fans. I want all of them. I'm going to write this set list tonight. I was ready for Elvis went to Hollywood. My only other thoughts are about that I talked to a few band members. Do you have any other thoughts about the show or any questions? I guess no. No.
00:28:27
Speaker
I'm curious, because I've never been in the Troubadour. I've been in lots of small venues, but I've never been there. I'm trying to imagine, so you're close to the stage, and then you said you end up sort of in kind of like a VIP area. How does that work? So you walk in the front door, and immediately on the left, there's a bar.
Band Member Encounters
00:28:52
Speaker
But that's but that is almost like segregated from if you're in that bar, you I don't think I don't think there's a window there. If you're in that bar, you wouldn't be watching the show like that's almost just like the Troubadour bar. And maybe that's even open when they're not. So I don't know. So then you walk into the hallway and you open up and then the stage is in front of
00:29:12
Speaker
Sorry, and then the stage would be on the right-hand side then. So as soon as you enter, the stage is on the right, so you kind of have to go to the left of it. Right, so if you just parked yourself, if you just got into this right in there and you stood right there, you'd be to the right of Bryson. If you just walked straight and stopped.
00:29:36
Speaker
So yeah, and then I don't know how far deep it goes back. Maybe only eight people deep? And it only is enough to cover the stage almost. And the stage is very condensed. That's the other thing. Yeah, you can almost see it pretty crowded up there with all of Charlie's setups and the drum. And they have a pretty large band, right? So that was kind of set up. Well, that's, I will say, another set list restrictor for them. I feel like I've seen them talk about this somewhere.
00:30:03
Speaker
It's a similar weirdly a similar problem with festivals, although kind of a different thing. But when you got when you lack space or you're they're troubled on what they can bring in, they use so many different guitars. Yes. Yes. That if you're like, look, we're only going to bring three guitars in because it would be insane to bring the whole thing for like when we don't have the space.
00:30:24
Speaker
that's also gonna be a set list restrictor for them because they just, it means they're songs they just have to cross out because we don't have space for one more guitar to add. So that's gonna kind of cut them, you know, cut out the list a little bit. No, that's right. And if you watch any of the videos of it, there is some online, again, I could be wrong about this, but to me, it felt like it only went like eight to 10 people deep. Like it was not that, you know, and I don't know how many wide. And then right behind that, there is a second bar.
00:30:50
Speaker
Okay, she's actually a pretty big bar in that and that's the bar that there's a, you know, I think you can I think you can walk around the whole bar if I remember correctly. So it's a second bar, then
00:31:02
Speaker
But also, when you originally walk in, you're to the right of the stage. And if you walk just a little bit to the left, there are stairs going up into a balcony. So you go to the balcony, and that's where the sound equipment is, right? The mixer, I guess, and stuff like that. That's where the engineers are. And there's a balcony to watch the show that only goes a couple deep. I guess in one part, there's like four or five deep. And on the right side of that, that's where Cindy Crawford was.
00:31:28
Speaker
And on the left side of the balcony is where the band rooms are. That's where the band prepares. And it is funny, right before they got on stage, they closed the blinds and everything. Maybe they wanted to talk about the set list or something before while people were still staring at them because they knew they were going to come down soon. So that's to the left of the balcony. To the right of the balcony, there's a third bar.
00:31:55
Speaker
So there's, I swear there's almost as much bar space in the Troubadour as there is a place to stand to watch the show.
00:32:02
Speaker
both of them being very small. So I almost didn't even realize that third bar was there for some reason. I guess during a show, because that was kind of behind Cindy. I guess I kind of noticed it when I looked up at Cindy Crawford. But yeah, when I first walked up, when I first got there, I walked to the balcony because I thought, oh, this is just a fun one. I guess that was kind of a VIP place. Now that time they didn't actually check my ticket. I think they just assumed that I had one.
Show Comparison: Troubadour vs. Whiskey a Go-Go
00:32:29
Speaker
So I do want to say before wrapping up the review that I was able to meet, fairly briefly, a couple of the band members, which I already hinted about. So when I got to the Troubadour, before I stood in line, I noticed, maybe there was more of them, but I noticed Jim and Charlie talking to people outside. It was very casual.
00:32:53
Speaker
I'm guessing a lot of the people at the show, if they were kind of Sirius XM employees or something, they might not even know that they're in the band, right? You might not know.
00:33:03
Speaker
So there I actually, yeah, I got to talk to Jim a bit. Yeah, I won't say much, except that I talked to him about a few things and even mentioned the podcast to him. Charlie, I could have talked to, so Charlie, I saw three times and I did make small talk to him at the one time. I probably could have talked to him more, but he seemed to be there with,
00:33:24
Speaker
let's just say I'm pretty sure wife and their friends, maybe mutual friends. And I kind of didn't want to interrupt even though he seemed like he actually would have been open to it. I just kind of got guilt that came up over me. Jim actually talked to also after the show quickly. And in fact, to be honest, I was going to talk to Charlie.
00:33:42
Speaker
once and I didn't but that actually because of that I didn't get to talk to some of the other band members but right before I left I checked out that third bar which I was told oh you actually have to that's where you definitely have to show your VIP ticket and I did they let me in and Dan was there talking to people that clearly I think he knew from before like a group of six and then about when I was leaving I kind of made a brief lie and then we actually talked
00:34:09
Speaker
for quite a few minutes and that's why i told him the Cindy Crawford thing and damn it was so nice and he was open to talking to more more i think but i actually felt guilty because my feeling i was taking him away from his friends so so i just said i'm gonna go thank you even for chatting to me for for a bit so that was always great
00:34:28
Speaker
Dan is someone who I never met. And Charlie, I even never said hi to. I think every other band member, maybe Millard's the only one now, I never said anything to. So anyway, it's always a dream come true. The whole experience was really cool. And after I came back from that show, Chris was the one that said,
00:34:48
Speaker
You know, Eric, you got me thinking. I wonder how that show compares, you know, the Counting Crows in a small venue in Hollywood. That's not the first time they've done it, even though it's been decades.
Accessing Archived Shows
00:35:03
Speaker
Let's look at a similar show to how much the Crows have changed over 30 years. And the one we agreed upon was, I think it's only a mile away, is a place called Whiskey A Go-Go.
00:35:15
Speaker
And it's a similar capacity, 500 people. And they played there in March 1994, so almost exactly 30 years ago. What is it, 29 and a half? 29, yeah. And we both listened to that show. So one thing I do want you to talk about, at least your thoughts, before we get into the Whiskey of Go-Go show,
00:35:35
Speaker
In this podcast, we are going to talk about prior shows and listen to them and review. Is there an easy way for our listeners to listen to these shows if they want to relive some of the same things that we are? Sure. The best way is to go to Crows Town and make sure I get the web address correctly.
00:36:03
Speaker
CR crows, the way you would spell crows dash town.com. Um, that is, it used to be, uh, I guess it's still a message board. Uh, it used to be a very active message board, um, and place where people traded, uh, counting crows tapes. Um, the band's always been open taping and always been very open about that and letting people tape and trade them. Um, as long as it's not for profit. And, uh, a few years ago, I and a couple of other people, Sandra from, um,
00:36:32
Speaker
uh, from the, the Netherlands and a couple other people, we put together as big an archive as we could, as we noticed the torrents were kind of winding down, or at least the torrent community was kind of winding down. And we put together as big an archive as we could. And we think we have pretty much everything that is available and able to be traded around.
Early '90s Performance Reflection
00:36:52
Speaker
Um, and you can go on, if you go on crows town, become a member, um, and make a request to join our file share group. You can do that.
00:37:00
Speaker
and you can check out that whole, the whole archive. And it's broken up by years. And we've got some video stuff as well, but a lot of tapes. And so I went back, part of it was this, it's interesting. I went back, first I looked and see if we had anything from the Troubadour. And it's interesting, in the SiriusXM interview that aired before the show played, the interviewer said, it doesn't look like you ever played the Troubadour. And Adam's like, I'm positive we played the Troubadour at some point for something.
00:37:30
Speaker
but no one can find a record of it. He's like, I don't know what happened, but like, I can't find anything. I'm with the host. I can't find anything. So I believe Adam, but it must've been something that was a small thing or something that was just so, and just for whatever reason, kind of lost to the winds of time.
00:37:49
Speaker
So we went back, um, on this 94 tour, this is March of 1994. Um, this show came out as a bootleg that was sold around. It was called suddenly beautiful. That's why I picked this one mostly because I think that the sound quality was quite good. Um, they played after that two nights at the Roxy as well. Um, I picked and a part of us, I also picked it. I just, I was like,
00:38:13
Speaker
Well, they played two nights at the Roxy and it's hard to pick between them. So I'm just going to pick the whiskey and go show because they're all at this stage of the game. Right. They were playing a pretty similar set list each night because they only had so many songs. But every show is kind of interesting and different. They were really playing around with the songs in a lot of ways. So it's kind of worth.
00:38:32
Speaker
checking out. And so yeah, our thought was like, let's listen to a club show from Hollywood, from the beginning, also, because we, you know, we had just talked about August and everything after. Yes. All the way through. And so it was
1994 Performance Insights
00:38:44
Speaker
really interesting to listen to, they play almost all of August on this show. Yes. So it was really interesting to go back and listen to the live versions, like a March 1994, a time capsule of the way those songs sounded at that point.
00:38:57
Speaker
Great. No, you're exactly right. So do we, well, one interesting thing is that, gosh, was it 14 or 15? But we just said that nowadays on their tour, they play about 20 songs. In this quote unquote classic show, they played about 15. So the set list number was similar to the quote unquote abbreviated Troubadour show. Right.
00:39:21
Speaker
They opened both shows with Goodnight Elizabeth. Oh, that's true. Thank you. I knew there was something else. And that's what we're saying because recovering satellites had not been out yet, but they played to recovering the satellite songs, right? Goodnight Elizabeth and Children in Bloom. And Children in Bloom was very similar to the eventual album version. I really like the 94 versions of Goodnight Elizabeth. They're still pretty similar to the album, but I really like how Adam sings them. In the 94 versions, he is
00:39:49
Speaker
Just the vocal of what he's bringing out of himself on that song is, I highly recommend checking out some of those. Yep, and I learned a little bit from reading the Cat and Chris book, which we'll talk about later, that I didn't realize, and it makes sense listening to this, how much that they did have some material ready to go for recovering the satellites before they put themselves in the house to record it.
Performance Evolution
00:40:15
Speaker
So let's hear some of your other thoughts. I mean, one,
00:40:18
Speaker
I have mostly good things to say. There are two things that did kind of crack me up a little bit listening to this. One is that
00:40:28
Speaker
it definitely highlighted what I call mopey Adam a little bit, that I forgot that he, I don't know how to describe it, he had some, it's like what some people didn't like, I mean, I always loved Adam in his singing, but what some people didn't like about him back then, maybe some of my peers, I know he sounds like he's whining and always, I don't know, before emo was even a thing, I guess, pseudo emo, did you get that impression at all, listening to that?
00:40:54
Speaker
And you can hear it again because he used to play around with the words a lot, right? And that's, you could definitely always tell Adam's mood from that stuff. The line in Mr. Jones is every time I look at the television, I've got to see me staring right back at me. Did you, by the way, catch in Mr. Jones? He says, I want to be Charles. I could not make it out. Charles something.
00:41:17
Speaker
I want to be Charles. I could not understand what you're saying. And I forgot. I think I noticed it the first time I didn't want to listen to it yesterday. I did not catch that. Yeah. But in the same way, he talks about how the record has turned gold, which, of course, you can later go platinum and many times platinum. Yes. Yeah. He says and.
00:41:35
Speaker
We're celebrating that August has turned gold and for the weirdness and misery that comes with that. That's funny. Remember, I did not see them until the Desert Life tour. So someone that didn't listen to them, and again, it's been 30 years and of course he's younger and everything.
00:41:51
Speaker
One thing, we just this kind of got verified, but you're enjoying the concert last night. I do think that when they play these older songs, they do play them better now. It's not it was still fun to listen to this version. It's different. I think they're different. It depends on the song and I think it depends on. Yeah, like I love like.
00:42:15
Speaker
how they do like the early Sullivan streets, like Adams, that and like Elizabeth, it's different, right? Adams brings so much out of himself, you know what I mean? But they do certainly, the arrangements are better, they play the songs, certainly they have more guys, the arrangements tend to be more interesting on these things. So yeah, there's like a kind of a push and pull on some of these songs where
00:42:39
Speaker
There's a certain rawness to the early versions that can be kind of endearing. But then you're also like, it's pretty cool what they do on Sullivan Street now. And I think some songs it can go better or worse. And I think some songs different periods over the course of 30 years, we'll talk about more.
00:42:56
Speaker
There's better and more exciting periods for those songs. Yeah. I thought of you because I did think the time and time again in the 94 was particularly good. Yeah. I love the version of Four White Stallions too particularly. My note just like, this version of Stallions slays. Yes. That's really killed that.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, right. So I was surprised that they even played that. I actually thought, again, in my mind, they didn't play that until the hard candy tour, which I did not realize they played that even back in 94. Yeah. Well, that's the story is always they needed those songs to fill out the set. So for
Surprising Setlist Choices
00:43:33
Speaker
White Stallions Mercy, which they played some I don't think they played on this show. Not on that one. They played Wise Blood and Marjorie. Yeah. They played Wise. They played Marjorie is also
00:43:43
Speaker
That's also one of those interesting songs that I know, if they ever did do an expanded version of Recovering the Satellites, that is one of the songs I'd be really interested to hear what they recorded of Marjorie, because they've always said they loved that song and they just realized something was not right about that song. But it's still a great tune. I hope it gets recorded too. But then it's interesting when you see Wise Blood, which I guess is a cover, it's interesting that that cover didn't make their cover album.
00:44:12
Speaker
Right. No, they didn't. Yeah. So I'm not sure why, but that was a song that they played quite a bit. Right. Wise Blood. And then. Yeah. Years. But that didn't make.
00:44:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know, one thing that they're all from Danzel. That's the three. It's Wise Blood Mercy and Four White Stallions are all from the band that became called Tender Mercies when they actually released a record in 2011 or 2012. I actually saw that one of the couple of the shows I saw on that tour, they Tender Mercies opened. Oh, for the band, which was cool with Jim playing drums, I think was a leader. I don't think Jim played with them in 94, but part of the San Francisco community. But Patrick Winningham is the guy.
00:44:51
Speaker
Okay. Charlie had played with and Dan had played with and was the guy where Adam felt basically stole. I killed this guy's dream. I stole his band and then I stole his songs. That's funny. We were talking about this with Holiday in Spain. One, and I felt it again last night or this morning. One thing I thought when listening to this is how much I miss them closing shows with Murder of One.
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's that is one of the things that the I like the way holiday end shows but yeah murder with this that the the alts in this or happy birthday baby was an interesting kind of even if they just did it sometimes and I know somebody else says which I'd love to hear them
00:45:30
Speaker
do walk away sometime. I mean, just walk away should be a nice one. Yeah, it wouldn't take too much to do walk away. Oh, you mentioned that Goodnight Elizabeth was really surprised me was be is that in Rain King. Yeah. Mentioned Goodnight Elizabeth. I couldn't believe I actually had I was shocked by that. The end he in that tour a lot. The end of of Rain King is Goodnight Elizabeth. I'm so sorry now because I'm the Rain King.
00:45:59
Speaker
And again, I thought that they brought that in the hard candy tour. That shows you what I didn't know about the band. Yeah. There's actually, I totally forgot about this too. They use Sweet Thing, the Van Morrison song, which later became a very common alt in Round Here in Rain King a little bit in this, which I totally, I blanked on that one. I was like, oh, shoot, there's that. Which I actually think works better. I thought that worked better in Rain King than it does in Round Here is my kind of take on that one.
00:46:28
Speaker
Um, but a good shot. I mean, again, it's it's.
00:46:33
Speaker
The interesting thing about those shows, the 94 shows, is that they're also subtly different. It's the same set of songs, pretty much, with some variations, because they've only got so many songs. But I think Adam's talked about this, that he used to be so intent on getting out how he felt that day on stage. Really, the shows could vary really widely based on his mood, which I'm sure was super fun for the band sometimes.
00:47:01
Speaker
You know that there is something that I think what's interesting about those early shows is like you can kind of pull any of them and you'll get a very, you'll get a similar show, but you'll get a very different vibe. Again, especially that August tour. They're all over the place. And I'm assuming, because this kind of caught my eye, I'm assuming that Immy was not with them, even though it was in Hollywood. And that's why I think on that Omaha, when that little like, you know, mandolin part usually when Immy comes out and plays that mandolin, that's missing.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, from this version because he wasn't there because I think he did play the mandolin on the studio version makes sense even though he wasn't a member of the band. I think that's I know he played in some songs on August and I think Omaha as the mandolin was one of them.
Generational Audience Behavior
00:47:45
Speaker
The only last observation and this kind of it's Adam actually mentions it.
00:47:51
Speaker
how like I mean I understand it's in Hollywood and how drunk and obnoxious the crowd was even they were listening but also obnoxious like you could tell they were big fans of the band and I was like geez I forgot that my generation could be good was like really annoying like yeah
00:48:10
Speaker
Like they I think did that more than other generations about Like kind of sometimes interrupting singers and as you said Yelling it. There's a dude last night. I will say that even 30 years later. There's a dude last night screaming for Thunder Road There's always like always a guy always always a guy it would I don't know if this relates to the drunk Thing but the one other thing that stood out and it also tied to the crowd is that
00:48:40
Speaker
You know how the crowd, depending on the time of the song, is trying to anticipate what he's going to say or might start singing the chorus before them? The one song that they were singing the chorus on and the time he was off would crack me up was actually Perfect Blue Buildings. That's not a song that you would think that the crowd would want to sing the chorus even if they know the song really well.
00:49:02
Speaker
And it kind of reminded me of like you with, I don't know, like what you're saying with colorblind, like you wouldn't expect like the crowd be like, I am colorblind, you know, or whatever, but. But the crowd is really, that's like, the crowd is so it's, yeah, it's probably a weird moment for them because they're blowing up, but they're still in clubs, which are really, you talked about like the Troubadour with the three bars, right? Yeah. The clubs are trying to sell booze. That's true. Right. That's really, that's how they make their money. There's a distinction. The crows very naturally fit as a theater band.
00:49:30
Speaker
You know what I mean? That's their sort of vibe, but they were in a 500 person club and selling booze and people were having a good time listening to the songs they hear on the radio, but also a bunch of them loving Perfect Blue Buildings and, you know. Yeah. And even though it was not a single, as you said, people knew and bought the album. People had bought the record, right? And so that's the thing. People had to buy the record at that point. They had to, they wanted to hear the song again. They had to buy the record. They listened
Exploring Archived Shows
00:49:58
Speaker
to the whole thing.
00:49:59
Speaker
And some of them liked perfectly buildings. 500,000 people at that point apparently had bought the record because it had gone gold. And so I'll just say again, it is worth, because not every time, but on this podcast, we will be reviewing older shows. And so I do welcome our audience to make a Crows Town account.
00:50:18
Speaker
Again, crows-town.com. Once you get permission, you can be good to
Future Episode Teasers
00:50:26
Speaker
go. I think it is a lot of fun that every month or every two months, we'll revisit an old show and see what's changed, what's different, what we miss, etc.
00:50:34
Speaker
So this was our main episode about the Banshee tour, but we will, even if it's just a short revisit, we will come back and talk after I have seen both of my shows in the L.A. area, which is going to be in August. Right. So mid August, we'll record maybe our part two of the Banshees review. So and next time we'll have a we'll have a pretty special guest. So we'll talk about that and we'll keep that a surprise.
00:51:02
Speaker
So thank you everyone for listening and coming down to hang out with us here on Sullivan Street. Goodbye.