The great Counting Crows brought their Banshee Season tour with emo icon Dashboard Confessional to Inglewood’s YouTube Theater last Wednesday night for an evening of emotional songs, storytelling and joyous camaraderie between the two groups.
Every time I’ve seen Dashboard Confessional, it’s been when they’re opening for another act. The first time was at the Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena) opening for Bon Jovi, where the band seemed out of their depth. The next time was opening for another 90’s legacy act, Third Eye Blind, where the group were solid but not necessarily making the strongest impression. Maybe it was that they were just coming back from a week off, or the happiness frontman Chris Carrabba had opening for his friend Adam Duritz and the Counting Crows, but Dashboard seemed invigorated and on-point their entire set.
Opening with the grandiose, U2-inspired “Don’t Wait”, the group showed that they could certainly play to a room this size. He then went between oldies (“The Sharp Hint of New Tears”, “Turpentine”) and songs from the group’s latest albums All The Truth That I Can Tell and Crooked Shadows (“Burning Heart”, “Belong”). Carrabba’s voice hasn’t only held up impeccably the last twenty years – the man himself looks like he hasn’t aged a day. I guess emo keeps you young.
Some more oldies got the DC fans cheering; a jaunty take on “Saints and Sailors”, and a positively rocking “Again I Go Unnoticed”. DC’s break-out song “Screaming Infidelities” was introduced with requests from Carrabba for audience participation. The audience heard, and could be heard. The set closed with a DC’s biggest hits; “Stolen”, “Vindicated” and “Hands Down”, songs filled with youthful heart that never seems to fade.
After having seen the Counting Crows at Beachlife Festival a couple years back, I knew that head-Crow Adam Duritz was not the type of frontman who likes to perform his songs just as they sound on the album, and I also got the feeling he wasn’t someone interested in simply doing a greatest hits set either. Thankfully Durtiz isn’t the curmudgeon that someone like Van Morrison is, and found a happy place between mining for deep-cuts and sharing poignant and powerful takes of their most beloved tracks.
The banded opened with “Catapult” and a great take on “St. Robinson in His Cadillac Dream”, with just a taste of “Crimson and Clover” thrown in at the end. These felt like an audience warm-up to get everyone in the room ready for the mega-hit “Mr. Jones”, which Durtiz changed-up just enough to make it interesting, but not so much so that the audience couldn’t sing-along during the chorus. The song always takes me back to middle school dances, where it would always be played and met with joy from all my fellow 90’s teens.
For “Colorblind”, Durtiz took center stage in the spotlight, and his performance can only be described as devastating. His lips quivered as he performed, sending shivers down my spine. It’s the type of delivery that makes the live experience so special – no matter how good the song is on record, watching Durtiz bring it to life made it all the more powerful. For Hard Candy‘s “Butterfly In Reverse”, Durtiz talked about how proud he was of the song when he first wrote it, and after only playing it live a few times then, he has since brought it out of retirement and found a newfound love of playing it live. The track does certainly separate itself out with it’s waltz-like rhythms and baroque pop vocal take. While “American Girls” and “Miami” will always be my favorite tracks from Hard Candy, it’s nice to see a band revive a potentially forgotten deep cut and giving it the justice they think it deserves.
After an accordion-accompanied “Omaha” singalong, Durtiz gave a brief speech discussing the band’s history with the late Robbie Robertson, who gave the band key advice as they were just starting out, and got them on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame stage to play for Van Morrison. He then dedicated “If I Could Give All My Love -or- Richard Manuel Is Dead” to Robertson. This was followed by one of the night’s more comical moments when Durtiz flubbed the opening of “Anna Begins”. After some self-directed curses and jokey complaints about how wordy the song was, the band went into a successful take of the track.
The band went acoustic for a cover of “Blues Run the Game” and “Angel of Silences”, with Duritz revealing that version of the song was developed specifically for VH1’s Storytellers series. The mood got stark for a beautiful “Round Here”, before the rock n’ roll energy returned for “Palisade Park” (also accompanied by its origin story) and a jolly “Rain King”. As a piano was moved to center stage, Durtiz sat down for my favorite track of the band – “A Long December”, which had everyone in the audience swaying and singing.
As it was already late, the encore break was kept very short, with the band coming back soon after for “Time and Time Again”. What happened next was certainly a welcome surprise – the band invited all of Dashboard Confessional back out to the stage, first to perform “So Long, So Long”, another great song from DC’s Dusk and Summer album the Duritz sang on. Getting to see the groups perform it live felt like another one of those special moments that made concerts so memorable. The song sounded fantastic, and DC stayed on stage next to join CC in their jangly hit “Hanginaround”, with Carrabba even taking one of the verses himself. The band then gave the audience one final lullaby, sending them off with “Holiday in Spain”.
There’s a good reason that Counting Crows have survived for almost 30 years, and Dashboard for 20 – each group has the kind of enduring songs that leave indelible marks in peoples’ lives, and they’ve learned how to share them in ways that bring back all the joys and emotions they originally made us feel.
Get your nostalgia on by listening to both bands again today!
The Indy Review 
1 Comment