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Words by: Dennis Cook | Images by: Josh Miller & Jay Blakesberg
The Black Crowes :: 12.04.09 – 12.06.09 :: The Fillmore :: San Francisco, CA
The Black Crowes barreled out of the station Friday, gaining steam with every minute, as opener "Good Morning Captain," cried, "Well there's a ruckus on the levee/ Unruly crowd on the courthouse steps/ And if I make it to Sunday/ I'm sho'nuff going to ask the good lord for help." As it turned out, the heavens smiled on them all weekend as they completed a five-night Fillmore stand that proved one of the finest runs in their 19 year history, an exhibition of their core qualities delivered with real prowess and passion.
Friday may have been the most forceful, strictly rock 'n' roll night of the series, with rafter shaking versions of "Cosmic Friend," "Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution," and particularly their signature epic, "My Morning Song." Few things compare with finding one's hand raised skyward, quite involuntarily, as massed voices join Chris Robinson in yearning to make our "haze blow away." Chris, in full bohemian shaman mode, came off especially forceful and reassuring as he intoned:
If music got to free your mind
Just let it go 'cause you never know, you never know
If your rhythm ever falls out of time
You can bring it to me and I will make it alright
 Chris Robinson :: 12.04 By Miller |
For all its depths, the Crowes' music is also a charming, blood stirring affirmation of rock's fundamental power. Sure, blues, jazz, and much else lurks below the riffs and searing vocals, but sometimes, like this Friday show, what they do just feels fantastic. Here was the burbling, happiness inducing, gonad tickling stuff that made poodle-skirted teen girls jump on soda shop tables. This was the stuff that makes boys form bands and firm up the courage to finally kiss someone they've ached to touch for ages. This was good times fitted to songs that also hummed with larger, darker things, be it the needle damage of "Nebakanezer" (which really nailed this tune's jubilant musical counterpart to the gut sick lyrics), the thousand yard stare of "Lost My Drivin' Wheel" (a version that wrung every bit of melancholy from Tom Rush's original), or the suspended beauty of encore "Last Place That Love Lives."
Yet, even with some forlorn breezes and black night thinking, the Crowes generated a mighty roar on Friday that tied them to the long line of ancestors before them, a foundational display of rock's impure perfection, where electric bluesmen grope country kin and longhairs sprinkle the whole thing with something they picked up in the parking lot as a gospel choir nibbles their ears. If this is snake oil, as so many claimed at rock's dawning, then it's not without legitimately healing properties, a "Remedy," if you will.
If I come on like a dream
Would you let me show you what I mean?
If you let me come on inside
Will you let it glide?
The Black Crowes :: 12.04.09 :: The Fillmore :: San Francisco, CA
Good Morning Captain, Nebakanezer, Cosmic Friend, Whoa Mule, Roll Old Jeremiah > Jam > Good Friday, My Morning Song, Shine Along, Lost My Drivin' Wheel, Blackberry, Show Me, Nonfiction > Jam, Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution, Remedy
E: Last Place That Love Lives, God's Got It, Hey Grandma
Continue reading for Saturday night...
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