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| 10-17-2002 | Previous edition: 10-16-2002 |
        
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Printer-friendly version Crows caw to spirited crowd
Entertainment Editor If a member of the audience at last night's Counting Crows concert thought that lead singer Adam Duritz was singing his song directly to him — it's probably because he was. The band played to a mostly full Elliott Hall of Music last night almost five years to the date after its last performance at Purdue. When the band started into its song "Mr. Jones," nearly the entire audience cheered, then immediately joined Duritz in singing the band's 1993 hit from its first album, "August and Everything After." The seven members of the band, wearing jeans and button-down shirts, played on a stage simply set with instruments and pink and blue lit smoke-filled air. The band performed one song right after another much to the crowd's enjoyment. The audience's enthusiasm was apparent right from the beginning of the show when nearly every audience member sprung out of his seat as soon as the lights dimmed. Throughout the show, Duritz seemed to be having a conversation with his audience members, telling them stories through his songs. As he causally danced around the stage, nodding his head to the music, he would stop to sing to a particular member of his audience for a moment before moving on to someone else. Other members of the band were equally crowd friendly as they smiled and made eye contact with nearby audience members. The band's appreciation of the audience was confirmed when Duritz stopped after a few songs to tell the crowd members that they were more than welcome to take pictures and even video tape the concert if they wanted to. "It's cool, just send $5 to Immy for the pictures and $20 to me for the videos," Duritz said as the crowd laughed. Duritz then looked at one member of the audience and asked if he was holding a laser pointer or a camera. "Don't think we aren't coming out there," Duritz said jokingly. Many members of the audience were singing, dancing and waving their hands in the air as the band performed songs such as "American Girls," "Goodnight Elisabeth," "Rain King" and "St. Robinson in his Cadillac Dream." Duritz's emotional connection to each song was evident through the clear expression in his voice. An example of this was during his performance of the song "Long December." Duritz played the piano and sang as the crowd joined in. When he finished the song he threw his fists in the air and a huge grin spread across his face. "'Long December' was great," said Chris Day, a sophomore in the School of Technology. "Adam was awesome on the piano." The band ended the show with the song "A Murder of One" before returning for an encore of the song "Round Here." The audience still wasn't ready to let the band go, and the band members returned once more, inviting the opening act, Grahm Colton, to join them in performing their hit "Hangin' Around." Donald Andersen, a junior in the School of Management, said, "I've been to a lot of concerts but this was definitely one of my favorites. They played a good mix of old and new music and some covers that I liked a lot. It was a great show both audioly and visually." Printer-friendly version |
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