Counting Crows 1993: "This is the beginning of our first tour, ever, so we're kinda kicked about that"

In around 1993/1994 I used to babysit for this lady that worked at Shoreline Amphitheatre as an usher, and seemed to know a lot of people in "the business" and got all kinds of great music. I would come to her house armed with a secret stash of blank cassette tapes and I would clandestinely dub her good music onto them after her daughter was safely tucked into bed. Naughty nannies, I know (ah, she didn't mind).

In this manner I got lots of good stuff, one of them being a soundboard recording of a very early Counting Crows show at the historic Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, from 8/27/93.

I absolutely wore out the tape, listening to it so many times that I know the entire set and all the dialogue by heart. Then tapes kind of went by the wayside in my life and now I think I've lost the original. I've spent many hours trolling the web looking for these songs. Then reader Jeff turns out to have this very show on mp3 and just sent it to me and made my WEEK (no, month!). In listening to it again for the first time in years, my ears are extremely happy.

This is a snapshot of the Crows at a critical juncture on the edge of stardom in their career, as the announcer says, "This band is so new, even *I* haven't heard of them yet..." and calls them an "up and coming new hot band" in the Bay Area. And as Adam Duritz says, "Uh, we're Counting Crows and this is the beginning of our first tour, EVER, so we're kinda kicked about that."

The set is full of enthusiasm, affability, and some excellent-quality renditions of rare songs of theirs that I LOVE but that they have never released officially. Both have those fabulous lyrics that I love Counting Crows for. Listen to the story in Open All Night. It's a simple story, evocative of a conversation shared between two strangers. If we were listening to this together, I've put little stars** next to the lines where I would shush you and make you listen closely, favorite parts of the song for one reason or another:

Exit 8 **
Small cafe **
Georgia moonlight **
It's 3am and I've been driving all night
She had a funny air, red-brown hair in the porchlight **
She said 'we're open all night
so won't you come inside
It's gonna be alright...'

She said 'tired?'
I said 'I'm a little bit unstable'
She said 'child, I will help you if I am able
See there's a bottle of relief upon the table
And we're open all night
so won't you come inside
It's gonna be alright...'

She said 'I was born the year the rockets landed **
Circa 1969 and I got stranded **
Yeah but the comet's getting close and I can't stand it **
Said we're open all night
So won't you come inside
It's gonna be alright...'

Exit 8
Small cafe
Georgia moonlight
It's 8am and I've been drinking all night
But there is nothing I will not do to make it alright
She said 'we're open all night
so won't you come inside
It's gonna be alright...'



. . . And Margery - This one is a bit more wordy, but just absolutely beautiful as well. It reads like a poem. As a huge fan of Counting Crows I like to see these early personifications of names that will recur in songs over the next ten-plus years for the Crows (Margery and Anna). Here's partial lyrics. I started starring ** lines in this song and realized it would be every line, so just shush and listen to all of it. Ow, beautiful.


In still water she lies down
shaking through the press of sunlight
We rolled into Lexington
she shakes off a drop of daylight

Water beading off her chest
bleeding down between her knees
Rivers in Kentucky flow
beneath the bluegrass wavy seas

And oh, Margery
sticks the knife once more inside of me

. . .

Dust me off and shut me down
and dream of where I haven't been
Close the door inside my heart
And stuff in the south Atlantic wind

I have hollow eyes
haunting only to myself
Even so I can't stop carving,
scraping hollows in myself

I took the train from California
to the far side of the continent
Woke up in Kentucky
Where the wedding was about to end

I looked up at Anna
she turned back to look at me
It's best to kill the ones that matter
render blind the ones who see

But oh, Margery
takes the blade and walks away from me

Oh, Margery
love like blood is pouring out of me

Oh, Margery
my heart won't stop bleeding over me

Oh, I can't shut it in
it's got far too many doors to block the wind
Oh, I can't shut it in
it's got far too many doors to block the wind


Adam reveals that his favorite song on "our new album" (August and Everything After) is Perfect Blue Buildings, (which is a perfect, opalescent, unspoiled, melancholy gem in my book) because, as he says, "It will never be a single." Plus, the Van Morrison Caravan cover can't be beat. As Adam says, "This is our favorite song, period, and . . . we didn't write it. But I wish we did."

ENJOY, my friends. You are in for a huge treat.

Counting Crows
Live at the Fox Theatre, Boulder, CO
August 27, 1993

01. Intro
02. Round Here
03. Open All Night (unreleased)
04. Rain King
05. Time and Time Again
06. Margery (unreleased)
07. Anna Begins
08. Perfect Blue Buildings
09. Caravan (Van Morrison)
10. Murder of One
11. Sullivan Street

DOWNLOAD THE WHOLE SHOW AS A ZIP FILE HERE
(you need this whole set, not just as piecemeal, yo.)