The Underground Press

Reports from the archives...
August 2, 1997 - Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA


Wiser Time ->
Share The Ride ->
Another Roadside Tragedy
Sister Luck
Boomer's Story
Come On Baby, Let's Go Downtown
Nonfiction -> Jam ->
Hard To Handle

http://www.crowesbase.com/tapelisting.cfm?TapeID=248

We've all become accustom to Arlo Guthrie's warm introductions for the band on the 1997 Furthur Festival Tour. He always provides the crowd with a slight warning with his common introduction of "we're going to... or it's time to... TURN IT UP with The Black Crowes!" The words "turn it up" is the message in the context of the other artists who played prior to the Crowes set that summer. This tour, instead of being the formal beginning of a new era turned out to be the formal ending to an era. That is an understatement, plain and simple. But on the afternoon of August 2nd, 1997 in Mountain View, California, regardless of what decisions had already been made, regardless of the karmic wheels already set in motion, there would be 2 more evenings of Black Crowes Music, as we knew it from 1992 to 1997, Marc Ford's original stint in the greatest band that ever played music.

After Arlo's introduction; "we're gonna kick it up though, we're gonna do it right now, so fans put your hands together for The Black Crowes", the delicious opening notes of Wiser Time begin to bubble. The band is playing at a supernatural level of interplay on this particular performance of this song and that's about all that needs to be said about this evening's Wiser Time. I will say that it is possible that Chris' vocals were even better in 1997 than they were in 1996. I will also say that's like comparing a really really great orange with a really really, really great orange. After about 6 notes of the Ballad In Urgency coda, the band launches full bore into Share The Ride. It is played in its usual style with an outro "take it easy baby" jam that segues into Another Roadside Tragedy, one of the outstanding new songs that was recorded that May for the unreleased-till-2006 album Band. Out of all of the performances of this new song, this is the one that finds the band struggling on the most. As the outro begins, Marc Ford is having some difficulty getting it on and as a result, the tempo slows (and the tempo is already slow at this point in the song) and you can hear what is the result of musical gears grinding. After a few more bars, they start to lift up and increase the pace of the tempo.

Sister Luck is next, and after a couple of flubbed notes from Marc on his intro slide part, he overcompensates with a beautiful series of notes somehow all played within an impossible timeframe but still sounding natural and nicely spaced out. Ridiculous. This is one of the best versions of Sister Luck I have ever heard, period. Next up, with Bruce Hornsby sitting in on accordian(!), is the beloved Boomer's Story. I challenge you to find somebody who doesn't love this song. Challenge, I say! What a beautiful version, given the presence of a finely played accordian, especially Bruce's soloing over the 'never saw the girl again' line, so organic, and well, 97' Crowes-like.

Next up, one of my favorite covers that was debuted in 1997, the Neil Young - Danny Whitten song Come On Baby, Let's Go Downtown. This song was first played by Neil Young & Crazy Horse at The Fillmore East in March of 1970 and was originally released on Crazy Horse's eponomously titled debut album in 1971. It was even more famously released on Neil Young's 1975 album Tonight's The Night. This is a song about buying drugs and in the summer of 1997, if you were in your late teens to mid-20's, chances are you could relate to this one. It seemed at the time that the covers the band were choosing to play were very easy to relate to, and the chances were, if you were really into the music, that you already had the originals at home in your collection. This was one of the best examples of that aesthetic.

Nonfiction, next up, is my favorite Black Crowes song. That is saying a lot already when you consider the amount of babble I've already thrown down regarding a bunch of non-favorite songs. Anyway, this particular performance is one of my favorites. Top 10 Nonfiction list material here. It is played in the full-blown band style, but this one has that 'even-nicer and looser, built-for-Furthur' vibe going. And just when you thought it can't get groovier, Chris ad-libs "I like to dress up like Bruce Hornsby...". Well, being a fan of Mr. Hornsby and the whole Furthur-Crowes-Hornsby-Love-Sit In-Vibe, well, that little ad-lib just gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling about the whole proceedings and the promise it held at the time. Just when you think you are fuzzed out, in steps Dave Ellis, and plays some appropriately breezy (and very fitting) sax, perfectly accompanying Chris singing "you're never very far away". The jam keeps on jamming, led by Marc Ford and Ellis' beautifully intricate intertwining space melodies. Many twists and turns later, the Roland Kirk-esque psychedelic freak jam settles down and suddenly we're all transported to the winter of 1970 at The Fillmore East and the Dead are, I mean, The Black Crowes are slowly cooking up a Hard To Handle closer that Pigpen would have been proud to have sung on. All too soon, just like every summer Furthur night in 1997, it was over. 24 hours later, it would be even more over. Nearly ten years gone and it still seems like it just happened. Such are the power of memories of ideal times.