#4 of 13 Crowes DVDs you should own: El Gordo's Grugahalle DVD

The Black Crowes
15 November 1996 - Grugahalle - Essen, Germany [ EUR ]

S E T L I S T »

One Mirror Too Many
Bring On, Bring On
Evil Eye
Shake Your Money Maker
Ballad In Urgency ->
Wiser Time
Thick N' Thin
Nonfiction
She Gave Good Sunflower
Chevrolet
High Head Blues
Stare It Cold
Good Friday
Hard To Handle

S H O W L E N G T H:
90 minutes

Version: El Gordo Production
Tracklisting: Complete
Menus: Title & Song Selection
Authoring: PC
Video Quality: VG, multi-cam pro shot, from master VHS
Audio Quality: VG, from DAT audio
Notes: PAL format.


By some stroke of luck, all three of the Black Crowes’ late 1996 European performances (if you call the Bullet Sound Studios a “performance” – I do) we caught on video – and two of the three were pro-shot. Of them, this DVD gets the nod above the others.

This debut of the Three Snakes and One Charm tour in Europe is a harbinger of what was to come weeks later in early 1997. Right out of the gate, you get the one-two-Three Snakes punch of One Mirror, Bring On, and Evil Eye. All are relatively tight (in a good way), with Bring On soaring, even without the jam. While the Crowes pack 14 songs into 90 minutes, the performance doesn’t suffer.

The setlist continues with four of the strongest tracks from Amorica (Ballad > Wiser, Nonfiction, Sunflower, HHB) interspersed with the era-appropriate cover and a track from SYMM. The highlights here are the Ballad outro jam, which seems to feature more pronounced Marc/Rich interplay than other versions I have heard, the Nonfiction outro, which gives everyone in the audience a taste of what’s in store for February, and a searing HHB outro that everyone, especially Ed, just rips up.

Production-wise, El Gordo did an outstanding job. The master VHS footage is paired with a great DAUD recording that’s nearly SBD quality. The menus look great and visually reference the TSAOC packaging, and the menu transitions are unique for a Crowes bootleg DVD. I believe this was one of, if not the, first Crowes DVDs he put out, and he definitely threw down a marker with this one. A great piece of production befitting a great piece of footage and Crowes history at number 4 on the list.

Trujillo, of course, in German means...

This is the tail end of a 13-part series of posts on the old amorica.org and the current blackcrowes.net message boards: my attempt to detail 13 must-have Black Crowes bootleg DVDs. I'll cross-post the top 5 here and then do a roundup with all 13 and the honorable mentions.

#5:: 5/24/95, Civic Theater, San Diego, CA; Acoustiking DVD Productions

http://crowesbase.com/tapelisting.cfm?TapeID=471

The Black Crowes
24 May 1995 - Civic Theater - San Diego, CA [ USA ]

S E T L I S T »

Sometimes Salvation
Jam -> Black Moon Creeping
A Conspiracy
Exit
Twice As Hard
Halfway To Everywhere Jam -> My Morning Song
Ballad In Urgency ->
Wiser Time
Stare It Cold
Hotel Illness
Hard To Handle
No Speak No Slave
- encore -
She Talks To Angels
Ooh Las Vegas
Remedy

Version: Acoustiking DVD Productions
Tracklisting: Complete
Menus: Title & Song Selection
Authoring: PC
Video Quality: Good, AUD shot from Marc side balcony, low gen
Audio Quality: Good, from alternative audio source
Notes: DVD created with 1g VHS footage and 1g DAT audio.

The Black Crowes, in full 1995 swing, Chris Trujillo in tow, blew the roof off the dump that is the San Diego Civic Theater. And we get to watch, courtesy of this DVD. Taken from first gen VHS footage with the camera on a tripod in the balcony, this very nicely shot video is synced with a very pleasing DAT audio source for your viewing and listening pleasure.

The performance is vintage 1995 -- everyone's rocking in the right places with plenty of energy, and taking their time when jamming it out. Witness the debut of the Halfway to Everywhere Jam, which builds from bits and pieces into an even more psychedelic take on an already funky riff, until it turns into a hard-driving jam and then winds down into MMS.

You can't ask for much more from a 1995 setlist, either. In addition to the Halfway Jam debut (hell, it was the debut of Halfway, period), we get one of the last Exits ever performed, a Sometimes Salvation opener, the second performance of Ooh Las Vegas, plus an Ed-heavy Ballad > Wiser.

The guy running the camera knew what he was doing. The usual wide full-band shots and Chris close-ups, but spotlights on the right people during the solos and more judicious parts.

One of the things I really enjoy about the DVDs are the little things you see during a show that you'd never catch unless you were watching, rather than just listening. This show features one of my all-time favorite running themes, which I believe was exclusive to 1995 shows: Chris' own little private random percussion station. Situated between Steve's and Trujillo's kits, it seems like something the band decided to give Chris to keep him busy during the jams. "Here Chris, go play with this maraca and cowbell until we finish up this jam." I can only imagine how Trujillo felt after being brought in to beef up the sound, to see this skinny white boy flailing around on the cymbals...

Anyway, spectacular performance + outstanding setlist + great, low-gen footage + sync + unintentional comedy/percussion stylings of CRob = #5.