The Metal Files

It was 1990 and The Black Crowes were all over the radio and rightfully so.  Shake Your Money Maker went multi-platinum.  I’m a big fan of their first 3 and like a handful of songs from 3 Snakes and a Charm and By Your Side, but they lost me throughout the 2000s.  In 1990 and 1991 I was drumming for a country band because I couldn’t find a metal band that played what I wanted to play.  The country band had She Talks to Angels in the setlist regularly and I think we did Hard To Handle a few times as well…of course with a country twang to it. It was an enjoyable gig and I was making decent money as we were the house band in a club for quite a while.

For whatever reason I had never seen them live.  It always seemed like something came up that had me miss them.  Finally last night I got to see them and it was worth the wait.  The brothers Robinson were on their game last night for the sold out show at Stubb’s in Austin, TX.  I had been watching the setlists from this current tour and they do like Cheap Trick where every night is a different list.  That’s really cool and tough to do, but it keeps the band fresh and they were fresh last night.

About 4 songs into the set it started to rain a little and I looked at the radar on my phone and saw that a huge storm was coming through so I went and stood under an awning.  Then the bottom fell out.  some folks crowded under the awnings where they could, some just left soaking wet but the majority of the crowd just stood there in the rain.  And it kept raining heavily.  I couldn’t see the band from where I was but I could hear them perfectly and it was still great.  When the lightning started, the band was apparently advised to cut it short.  They did an encore of 2 songs and that was it, unfortunately 30 minutes short.  Right after it ended, the rain stopped.  I met up with some friends who were also there and carried on with our night.  One friend I ran into said that they were surprised that I was a fan of the Crowes.  For me the explanation is easy.  While I’m not a big fan of the blues and bluesy rock, I am a Rolling Stones fanatic and The Black Crowes remind me of them so much.  For me it just seems natural to like them.

Fun show.  I look forward to their next trip to town.