XPoNential Festival Day 3: Where I question my faith in my favorite band.

When I looked at the lineup for day three, I pretty much just figured it was going to be a wash of a day. The only artist I recognized was Counting Crows, and they were the last act of the night. Had I not been so anxious to get the upgraded seats (which meant needing to show up early in the day) I probably would have just waited and gone right before they even took the stage, but things being as they were, I was up and out the door early for the final day of the festival.

I actually woke up super early this morning, and I jumped up out of bed like a toy on a spring. I had a lot of time to kill before I left, but that is neither here nor there, really. Eventually I got around to showering and getting dressed for the day. I was considering jeans again, or jean shorts, but am glad that i went with a skirt, as the weather was MUCH hotter than forcasted.

After procuring my tickets for the Counting Crows (we already had access to the show, these tickets were just upgraded seats, out of the lawn and into a chair) I went inside, found a perfect spot for my blanket, and set up camp. The band that was playing was called Work Drugs and as I was walking in i recognized a few of their tunes from listening to XPN, so I hung out and watched the rest of their set. I really liked what these guys were throwing out there. Synth-y pop stuff, but really mellow, and it was absolutely perfect for sitting in the grass and baking in the hot summer sun.

Up next on the River stage was Carlos Diego, who I had never heard, but wasnt disappointed with, either. The band had a little bit of a salsa-y vibe to them, which I could absolutely dig. I watched a few of his numbers, and then decided that the sun was too much for me, and started walking around looking at the vendors and trying to stay beneath the shade of the trees.

There was a lot going on after his set, and most of that doesnt have to do directly with music, so ill skip it. I do want to share, though, that there is a really rather funny story about a record that fits into this time frame, and id be willing to tell you about it if you ask nicely. It involves the word "bastard" and me running. Thats all you are getting.

Back to the music.

The next act was some Cabinet of Wonder or some nonsense. It was just a bunch of different artists doing different stuff. Mostly I hated it. The one part we were on the blanket for was this dude doing a dramatic reading over some weird drum and bass. It just really wasnt my thing. at all. Mostly I just found myself wishing it was over.

Rhett Miller closed out the River stage this year, and I was a dummy for a while and forgot who he was, but remembered early in the day, and then found myself super excited to see him. I really like the Old '97s and knew this was as close to seeing them as I was getting, so I settled in on the blanket and danced around a lot for about an hour. This act was billed as "Rhett Miller and the Serial Lady Killers" so I didnt expect to hear any Old '97s stuff, but no sooner did we sit down then did the band start to play Singular Girl, and that smile I have been wearing all weekend found its way right back to my face. In fact, they played a LOT of Old '97s stuff, including one of the sweetest songs I know, Question.

So here I am, smiling like a wacko, and on my way to see one of the most important bands in my life, the Counting Crows. Whatever else had gone on that weekend was going to pale in comparison to what was about to happen when I stepped foot into the Susquehanna Bank Center (or the E-Center if you go by the sign in Wiggins Park. tee hee hee.) I should have been in a state of bliss for the rest of the night, but that was not the case.

I just was not feeling the Counting Crows' set tonight. They opened with Sullivan Street, which is a decent enough track, but everything was played a bit slowed down tonight, and for songs that are slow to begin with, well, it made for a hard time trying to stay awake during some parts of the set. As much as this band means to me, I havent spent much time with any of the newer material, which is what they played for a majority of their set. Honestly, at one point I caught myself nodding off. I tried blaming it on the fact that I had been out in the sun for the last three days but I cant deny the fact that I just wasn't into the set.

Another issue that I had was that the crowd in the seats where we were were just not into the show. At all. Barely anyone was up out of their seats, no one was singing along, and it was just kind of a boring atmosphere in our section. A large part of the reason I love live shows is the bond that you form with the others who are there and who are just as excited to be there as you are. Audience participation adds to or detracts a lot from any live show and its sad to say that in this instance, it was definitely a deterrent.

I am still happy that I got to see the Counting Crows, though. I mean, I did the math and I have been in love with that band for 18 years. That is more than half of my life. There is something about them that will stick with me forever. I can't turn my back on them for one less than desirable concert. I also think that had I not seen bands like Good Old War and the Hold Steady! earlier that weekend, I wouldn't be feeling quite as let down as I do.

Anyway, the setlist:
Sullivan Street
Untitled (Love Song)
Another Horsedreamer's Blues
Hard Candy
Hospital
Goodnight Elizabeth/Pale Blue Eyes (Sheryl Crow cover)
Start Again (Teenage Fanclub cover)
Meet On The Ledge
Four White Stallions
Mrs. Potter's Lullaby
Ghost Train
Long December
Return Of The Grevious Angel
Come Around 
Rain King/Washington Square

Encore (all the guys from all of the bands on the Outlaw Roadshow tour came out for these three songs)
Hangin' Around
You Ain't Going Nowhere
This Land Is Your Land

I forgot about Mrs. Potter's Lullaby. That made me really happy. I just really could have stood for one or two of my favorites, or Mr. Jones for Pete's sake!

Even if I was a little bit disappointed in the show, I still love and always will love this crazy man. Maybe I need to pay more attention to the newer material for the next time I see them, because four is an awkward number, so I will see them again.

Just some thoughts

Generally, I *try* to be a happy person, but more often than not, I am frustrated or upset by something that I probably shouldn't be, and end up pretty miserable because of stuff that is usually out of my control or that doesn't really matter much anyway, in the long run.

Friends let me down. Boys are pretty much non-existent in my life. I work all of the time yet somehow NEVER have any cash. I am generally unsatisfied with the way my life is currently progressing.

But then there is music.

Yesterday alone, I found out something that was already widely speculated, but one of the bands that I adored in college, The Starting Line, is heading out on a 10 year anniversary tour in support of their debut album Say It Like You Mean It. This show, for me, is happening on December 30 and I have already made plans to attend. I wont have work, so its a done deal for me.

Also, The Gaslight Anthem has a new album hitting the stores next Tuesday, and NPR started streaming it yesterday. I already wrote about this in more detail yesterday so I wont go there again.

Then there is the fact that sometimes I do "grown-up" things, like supporting a listener-supported radio station. And sometimes, when someone does something like this, they are rewarded. My reward just happened to be a pair of passes to the XPonential Festival  this coming weekend. I am going to have the opportunity to see some bands that I love, including Counting Crows, The Hold Steady, The Avett Brothers, Good Old War, and a new favorite Dawes. I have been listening to a playlist of all of those bands, plus some others from the festival, for a few days now, in between spins of Handwritten, and I am getting pretty excited.

Music is the thing that drives me. The bands that I love are my passion. When I am fruitless in my search to find a friend to spend some time with me, I know that my record collection will not let me down. Long rides with a good disk and the windows down are where dreams are born and nurtured. You know that cliche'd deserted island question? my answer is always my music collection and the ability to listen to it.

Today after work, when the car started, "Einstein on the Beach" by the Counting Crows was on the radio. I know I had a big cheesy grin on my face, because that song just does that to me, so when I drove passed the Medical Intern also walking to his car, he looked at me kind of funny and smiled back. He must have thought I was smiling at him, but really, I was just happy about the Eggman. That's all, dude. Just smiling about some silly song that the artist never wanted anyone to hear, but that I adore, and that makes me happier than any person ever could.

When I meet the man that can put that same shit-eating grin on my face, he had better be prepared to put a ring on my finger immediately.

365 project, "She sees shooting stars and comet tails, she's got Heaven in her eyes"

185.

Artist: Counting Crows
Album: Recovering the Satellites

My senior year of college was the only year that I had a car on campus. That was actually the first year that I had a car that was mine and that I wasn’t sharing with my momma or my brothers or sister. That car was really special to me, and it became a huge part of my life. Sometimes I think that car might have saved me from myself.

This was also the only year that I didn’t live in a dorm room. Six of us (five girls and one boy) rented a house our near the beach because our wonderful college did not have enough housing for the senior class. This wouldn’t have been so hard to swallow if our lottery number was like 372, but considering we were like number 32 or something, it was a bit frustrating…to the point that security may have been called on a roommate the day of the lottery for freaking out about how absolutely unfair this was, but that is besides the point.

Anyway, as is the case generally with such a group, things were not always smooth sailing living in the house. Most of the time we all got along without too much of an issue, but every once in a while things would boil over and all five girls would PMS at once or something, but it would get ugly in there. These were the nights where I would decide that I needed to go home after my last class, even if it was after ten before I even got out of class. The two hour drive home was always much shorter than that late at night, and I got a lot of thinking done in that car with the stereo turned all the way up.

While I remember making the trip home quite often over the course of my time at school, one night stands out in particular, and it was the night that I decided to listen to Recovering the Satellites on the drive.

It was a clear night, no rain or anything like that, and I was the only car on the road. There had been some fairly highly-charged issues inside of our house, and I knew that not only was I unhappy being there, but that I was not in the mood to deal with the situation that particular night, so after class I came home and packed some things and took off for home. I used to take 295S home instead of the Turnpike, because even though it added about 15 minutes to my trip, it saved me 1.15, and as a poor college kid, that 1.15 every trip added up. I almost always have Recovering the Satellites in my visor CD holder, but I kind of fight with myself about listening to it. Its kind of like eating goldfish crackers-I think they are going to be bland, and then I eat some and remember how much I love them. Anyway, I was in one of those moods, so I figured that CD fit the setting, and I popped it into my Discman. (Rhu was an old car, and only had a tape deck, so I had to do the whole Discman-to-adapter deal in the car.) This was also the night that I decided that this was my favorite Counting Crows album, and that i wanted that shooting star tattooed on my wrist.

At some point along 295S, in the middle of the night, with the windows up and the radio cranked, I figured everything out while the song Monkey was playing, but sadly, by the end of the album nothing made sense again. As strange as that moment of clarity was, I find it stranger that I can remember the exact moment. I find myself wanting to go back to that moment to see now what I saw then, but I think that I might be figuring it all out again, 10 years later.

365 project "please welcome my favorite band, uh, counting crows"

146.

artist:counting crows
album:across a wire:live in NYC (disk 1)

one of the things that i love most, and forgive me if I've mentioned this already, is the counting crows' ability to play one of their songs so differently in a live setting, but yet still keep it recognizable. sometimes "jammy" bands get on stage and you have no idea what the heck is even going on, or what song they are supposedly playing (DMB is definitely guilty of this, at least from the one instance I've seen them live...) but in my opinion, the crows' remain true to their songs. i know that there are a lot out there that disagree with me on this one, however i believe it to be true, and for the purposes of this blog, my opinion is the only one that matters.

i love the across the wire disks. i definitely prefer the VH1 disk to the MTV, but i think that's because the version of Anna begins on the VH1 disk is so hauntingly beautiful that nothing could top it. i mean, that song is beautiful to begin with, but the live version of it kicks so much ass it hurts three days later.

these are disks that make every road trip i take. these are disks that got me through years of college and life after college. they are my fall backs when I'm sad or scared or lonely or hurt...or happy, thankful, excited, or content. if i ever have kids, these will be the songs that my kids are raised on.

sophomore year of college out at Waynesburg, i had a class during the second semester that i had been warned about by everyone ahead of me in the department. "Krause is a hard professor and you really have to bust your ass to pass this class" was the general message. looking back, i think Krause paid the upperclassmen to say that, because, although i did bust my ass in that class, i got an A with really not too much extra effort. at any rate, i had received a card in the mail from my "granny" for my birthday and included in that card was a 20 dollar bill. i should have used that money for something practical, but i decided to reward myself, instead. the plan was that i could buy this new Counting Crows disk in the college bookstore that id been eyeing up if i got an A on Krause's midterm. the A was achieved and the CD was purchased, and obviously it meant a lot to me even then if i still remember the details of that particular purchase 12 years later.

I'm itching for the chance to see Counting Crows live again. hopefully that will happen soon.

365 project: "the world begins to dissapear, the worst things come from inside here"

121.

Artist:counting crows
Album:films about ghosts: the very best of…

Do you have a go-to song? A song that can make you smile no matter how rough a patch you are going through? A song that just brightens your day, lightens your mood and puts a smile on your face?
For me, that song is “Einstein on the beach” by the counting crows.
I can remember hearing it on Y100 for the first time back when I was still pretty young, and just falling in love with the song. that’s the same case with most of counting crows’ catalog, but I digress. I knew the second I heard it that I needed a copy of this song somehow, though at that time it only existed on DGC Rarities vol 4. at 14 I didn’t really have much of a steady income and buying a 15-20 dollar CD for one song seemed awfully wasteful to me. I did end up buying the CD years later in a used CD shop for a few bucks, and at that time it wasn’t such a waste, as I actually knew something about music and liked more than just one song on the album.
If you research what this song means, its widely believed to be about Einstein and his creation of the atom bomb. I find it a touch ironic that a song about mass destruction and murder could make me so happy, but its funny how life works sometimes.
I had a rough day today. By six pm my blood was boiling and my skin was crawling. I am unable to get into specifics, but I was more angry than I can remember being since the day I quit Wawa. Seething, I suppose, is a better term. I got into my car knowing full well that my next stop was a trip to Wal-Mart, which always brings me such great joy (note:sarcasm alert) and just sat there taking deep breaths before I started the car. When I finally did turn the key, this song came blaring out of the speakers. I turned up the volume, started the song back and the beginning, and just let myself be calmed.
Music has such an awesome power over my mood. Its actually pretty insane to think that three minutes of noise can make that huge of a difference, but it does.

365 project:"open up your eyes, you can see the flames of your wasted life. you should be ashamed"

80.

artist:counting crows
album:august and everything after

this might be the CD with which i have the most history. i owned the cassette, and bought it shortly after it came out back in 1993. i remember sitting in the passenger's seat of my mom's dodge caravan waiting at the elementary school for my younger brothers and sister to come out of the building and hearing Mr. Jones for the first time. i remember hearing it subsequent times and getting really excited every time. i saved up some cash that i made babysitting and went to the store with dad and bought the cassette. i was so excited to own it.

this is an album that i really like to sit and listen to from beginning to end, especially on a darker, moodier day. it starts with silence, ends with silence, and the stories it tells in between that silence are ones that i have carried with me for the last 18 years. not to mention the fact that throughout all of this time, the song Anna begins has resounded with me as one of the most haunting, heartbreaking, beautiful bodies of work i have ever had the pleasure of hearing. i would almost guarantee that my love of dark, sad, moody songs comes directly from my love for that song.

I'm listening to this version currently, and it is giving me chills. if a song ever had the power to break my heart and twist my insides into knots, its this one. this video has no picture, but i think that in this case it would take away from the emotion in the song.

obviously i didn't listen to this album on cassette today. at some point during college i was hanging out on south street with some of my friends. i distinctly remember being with kaite and Jaime, so i must have been with some of my roommates, too. at any rate, there was a record store along the street, and we stopped in as one of our last stops of the night (i remember it being dark when we were leaving. i also remember someone in a leather jacket sitting on the steps). as i was poking around through the Cd's i stumbled upon a used copy of august and everything after. i paid about five dollars for it, as it had been out 8 or 9 years by that point, and another 9 or 10 years later i had to skip a few songs and through a few other parts of the CD because its so scratched up and loved in some spots that it will no longer play. it might be time to invest in another copy.

counting crows are one of my top three favorite bands. this is my favorite album of theirs. by that reasoning, its one of my favorite albums. i don't think there is a part of the entire record that I'm not totally in love with. they are my favorite songs to hear live. i think counting crows were the first band that i learned to love without my parents' influence (they have a lot of influence on my musical taste) and therefore they will always have a special place in my heart.

365 project:"i may take a holiday in Spain, leave my wings behind me. "

56.

artist:counting crows
album:hard candy

this doesn't rank among the highest of the crow's albums for me, but it does have a rather special story behind how i acquired it.

at the time i was interning for MTV, and actually spending most of my time interning for Direct Effect, which was a hip hop show that they aired that featured DJ Clue and La La as the hosts. it was totally not my scene at all, but i think that's why it was a good spot for me. i didn't know who the artists were, so i didn't have to worry about being in awe, i just did my job.

at any rate, we were hanging out in the production trailer one day and for some reason or another, one of the producers asked one of the other interns to run some ridiculous errand. i added "while you are at it, Corey, can you swing by the record store for me?" since it was a Tuesday, everyone in the trailer knew that that meant new records came out that day. the producer asked me what i needed from the record store, and i said "oh, the new counting crows album came out today." she spun around to a stack of CD cases on her desk, pulls one out of the pile and says "this one? hard candy?" and then tossed it at me. i said yeah, and i went to toss it back and she told me to stop. "this is a hip hop show. what the heck am i going to do with that? its yours."

i was excited because it meant that i didn't have to go to the mall on the way back to my dorm, and that i didn't have to spend 15 dollars on a new CD. i think of Direct Effect every time i listen to hard candy.