IT'S hard to get a handle on The Black Crowes are they fearless Southern rock adventurers or just a bunch of pistol twirling retro cowboys? In recent times, they've drifted from a straight talkin hip walking R & B soul outfit into a psychedelic country rock band, with still a bit of attitude beneath the mellow prairie surface. Chris Robinson might look like a country bumpkin of late, but underneath that beard and those baggy dungarees still lurks a tightly coiled soul serpent, although with some of the venom and bite taken out.
These days, the Crowes seem more concerned with the polish than the spit, working on the pursuit of musical excellence, and leaving the energy and immediacy to young pretenders like Reef. Superbly crafted the Crowes' music may he, but as recent albums such as America and Three Snakes And One Charm show, the tunes are buried under a brilliant sheen of instrumental excellence. Oh, it still sounds down and dirty, alright, but it also verges on the downright progressive. Yes, The Black Crowes are turning into The Grateful Dead, and they make Kula Shaker's retro dabblings seem like so much weak acid.
At the Olympia on Saturday night, support act Patti Rothberg pulled out, so the Crowes went onstage an hour earlier than scheduled, playing for me that for hours just to make sure everybody got their moneymaker's worth. This was the last night in the band's European Tour, and they were gonna shake us and shimmy us all the cows came home to roost. The six piece of Chris Robinson, guitarist brother Rich Robinson, bassist Johnny Cole, Drummer Steve Gorman, keyboardist Eddie Harsch, and guitarist Marc Ford are a chugging combine harvester of riffs and rhythms from rock's deep, overgrown past, as Sting Me Under A Mountain and Evil Eye are forged by a musical alchemy which can sometimes turn a leaden old tune into luminous gold.
Often, however, the alchemy doesn't have the required effect, and we find ourselves losing the awe and looking around for something a bit sharper and more practical. When the Crowes lose the solid soul grounding and start floating off into lengthy, acid prog instrumental trips, we start to wonder if this magic bus will ever stop.
Even the band's version of Hard To Handle seems to have had a careful of hay attached to it, slowing it down to a guitar noddling trot, but at least it fits in with the general pace of the set the immediacy is reserved for the encore, when the Crowes cut loose into straight up renditions of Elvis's Jailhouse Rock, the band's own Jealous Again, and the Rolling Stones' Happy.
