The Black Crowes

Venue:

Hammy Odeon

Date: 15/05/2024

The Black Crowes tore the roof off of the old Hammy Odeon on Wednesday night and I couldn’t be happier; but let’s back the old flat-bed truck up a bit for some context.

The Black Crowes should be my band; they just should. I have always thought of them as the bastard sons of some salacious, illicit communion between The Stones and The Faces, in 1971, in the Riot House Hotel on Sunset, West Hollywood. Both bands were at the peak of their powers and they both had that one thing which so many pretenders to the rock ‘n roll throne don’t have; I call it Swing ‘n Swagger. The best rock ‘n roll bands have swing; Charlie had it and Kenney had it. It’s where the drummer sits in ‘the pocket’, that mysterious area of the beat which no one can explain but every musician knows. Swagger is so rare in a band. The Stones had it and The Faces had it; it’s an attitude, a walk, a confidence; a ‘fuck-you, you may think you’re better than us but wait until we plug-in and kick-off. We’ll blow you away.’ And those bastard sons from Atlanta, Georgia had it.
So, why aren’t The Black Crowes MY band? They made such a mess of everything, I guess. I played the first two albums to death but they lost me with Amorica, (nothing from it is played tonight,) and things began to fall apart. The drugs took hold and the Robinson brothers fell out over, well everything. And trust me, the Robinson boys made the Gallagher Brothers look like the Beverley Sisters.

So I moved on; read the interviews, kept an eye on the bastards and saw The Chris Robinson Brotherhood with the gorgeous Neal Casal on guitar and humanity; but nothing scratched that itch.
Fast forward to last year and the rumours of a new album. The band had got back together, (yes, again,) in 2019 but lost time due to covid. Yet it was covid which brought Chris and Rich together, talking about kids and wives and family. They began to write again and, somehow, someway, the spark came back.

The album, Happiness Bastards, came out in March of this year and it’s the best thing they’ve done since the heady days of the early ‘90’s and those first two albums. So tonight, Matthew, is my first ever Black Crowes gig.

And I’m nervous. I so want them to blow me away; to come out and start with Bedside Manners & Rats and Clowns, the opening tracks from the new album, and then give me a mix of new stuff and the hits.

And let me tell you, children, that is exactly what they do.

The stage is set up like some old Southern travelling fair, all banners and flags and a black & white cardboard cut-out of Chuck Berry. Above a wall of vintage amps and speakers sits the drummer who is flanked by two girl singers on our left and by the keyboard player on our right. Down front is the 2nd guitarist, long-time bassist, Sven Pipien and the Robinson brothers. Rich strides around the right-side of the stage, leaving plenty of room for big brother Chris to dance, strut and swagger his way though the 100-minute set. Chris is wearing a red suit, white shirt, black shoestring tie and black & white shoes. His hair is shorter than usual and he dances in front of a huge mirror, edged with lights, which points out at the audience.

The two opening tracks from Happiness Bastards roar out of those vintage amps like some long-lost tapes from Exile, on speed. Then, BANG, straight into Twice As Hard, Track One, Side One of their very first album, Shake Your Money Maker. And it rocks like a mutha, the girls coming into their own in their red, feather-fringe dresses, singing like Georgia angels.

Chris is in fine voice and is ‘moving like Jagger’, only better. He looks and sounds SO happy and there are constant grins between the brothers, you know, those grins that happen between brothers and best friends when life is good.

The setlist is indeed a red-hot mix of hits, some deep cuts and the best of Happiness Bastards. They even throw in a storming cover of White Light/White Heat, (the old git’s Velvets song never sounded so good,) before KILLING Otis’s Hard to Handle, the song which got people to sit up and take notice, 34 years ago.

Jealous and Remedy end the set and they leave to a delirious noise of roars and yells and whistles. When they come back on, they hammer through Oh Carol, Chuck Berry’s rocker which The Stones turned into an anthem. Then Chris announces the final song, saying that they’re going to play one of Steven Tyler’s songs because they’re going back out with Aerosmith in the U.S, in September. Rich fires up the opening chords to Mama Kin like he’s stoking the boiler of a runaway train, Chris sings the opening lines and then, dancing sideways onto the stage, comes Tyler himself, all silver streak and flared jeans. He looks a million dollars and he and Chris sing into the same mic, Chris occasionally standing back, dancing and clapping as he watches his hero, the grin nearly reaching his ears.

And then it’s over. Hugs all round, Chris yelling, ‘Thank you London, we’ll see ya when we see ya!’ and I float out into the night, ears ringing, head buzzing and matching Chris’s grin.

The audience:

Me. I wasn’t aware of anyone else.

It made me think..

Gig of the Year?

Fuck, yeah!

6