Twenty years ago this September, Counting Crows released one of the great debut albums of all time, August and Everything After.
It married elements of The Band, Springsteen and Van Morrison to a sort of joyous introspection, in songs written by and exclusively about, singer Adam Duritz. Despite album sales in excess of 20m, it has not been an altogether easy road for Duritz, with endless relationship issues and latterly mental illness to cope with, so that it was a real pleasure to witness the band deliver such an out-and-out stormer.
The last date of their UK tour brought Counting Crows to a sold out Academy, where they launched straight into Round Here, arguably their best song and one which, in the past, Duritz has rambled through to such an extent as to ruin it completely. Not this time. Sure, he extended the middle section but it was always in control and the climax of the song left the audience, stunned. We then had the bonus of another 90 minutes of beautifully crafted music.
The songs were lifted from all periods of their output, although August and their fourth album, Hard Candy provided the bulk of the tunes. There were covers, too, with Gram Parson's Return of the Grievous Angel and Teenage Fanclub's Start Again.
"I have to go home - I don't want to, but I have to," exclaimed Duritz, before finishing with the appropriate Holiday in Spain. The punters, clearly, didn't want him to go, either.
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