Visions of Utica

From the desk of Peter Crowley:

It’s been well over a month since I wrote anything for this Web site, and it kind of feels like longer – like I’ve gone into a new room in my life: perhaps the living room instead of the kitchen, and can’t do kitchen work in this room.

It’s certainly not writer’s block because that would require me wanting to write. It’s not even writer’s ennui. Maybe writer’s apathy.

Anyway, even when the Ten Dollar Radio Show went off the air, I had a backlog of things I wanted to write for this, mostly reviews of concerts and new albums. These next few entries, therefore, will be catch-up – if I even get past this first one here.

So first up is the Black Crowes on Sept. 11 at the Saranac (F.X. Matt) Brewery in the fine old upstate New York city of Utica.

I made it to the show after visiting some of my Irish ancestors that afternoon at a hillside cemetery in nearby Ilion, so perhaps I wasn’t quite in the mood for full-on rock ’n’ roll, especially since it was raining and cold and the opening band was kind of lame – in a ’70s heartland, pop-rock, Grand Funk Railroad kind of way. But the Crowes more than made up for it all. They’re playing like champs again, anchored deep and reaching out for a more northern sound than before – they seem to have found some upstate soul in their experience of recording at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock.

No. 1 highlight: In a cover of Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows this Is Nowhere,” Luther Dickinson’s solo would have made the show if Rich Robinson hadn’t followed it with one that touched the stars and kept on going. Good Lord, he’s one of the greats.

Other memorable highlights: the crowd singing along with the “Magnolia” line of the opening song, “Good Morning Captain,” and everyone shakin’ it on down in an “I Ain’t Hiding” that raged beyond disco.

Lowlight: The band is again dragging the backup singers around with them on tour, and these two black ladies were tucked way in the back of the stage in what looked like a glass booth. They didn’t really have enough to do, except on “I Ain’t Hiding,” which they got into. Also, they had hardly any room or visibility, and it seemed lousy to have them there. I’m sure they’re getting paid fairly well, but it was gratuitous to the point of being distracting – and not gratuitous like having an extra guitar on a stand beside you that you maybe only play for one song; this is making people, really talented people, stand there in the cold to do a little do-wopping way in the background. I could hardly hear them. If they’re part of the band, bring ‘em into the fold and let ‘em really sing and move around on stage. But Rich and Sven sing a lot of backup anyway, so if the band doesn’t need more than just the white boys, then let the white boys do it all.

Still and all, this show was wonderful. It made the Southerner and the northerner in me very happy. If you want a taste of this band’s newfound depth, breadth and diversity, trot down to your local record store and buy their new album, “Before the Frost” and download the companion “Until the Freeze.” And be sure to listen to them multiple times; to me, they get better with each spin.

Also, please do yourself a favor and check out “What’s Wrong with Steve” (Gorman) on the Crowes’ Web site. Who needs Dear Abby anymore? Goddamn drummers are hilarious.