Counting Crows fail to fly with symphony

Counting Crows, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra , Disney Hall, Los
Angeles)

By Darryl Morden

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – While a brave attempt,
Counting Crows’ collaboration with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra
at Disney Hall Tuesday rarely achieved its goal of blending the
band’s brooding sounds with symphonic coloring.

In the past, this approach has worked for several art-rock
or prog-rock bands. But those groups already had mined such
elements of classical structure as shifting time signatures and
suitelike pieces. It’s also worked for pop singers, but it
didn’t in this final installment of this season’s
“Orchestrated” concert series at the hall.

The classic rock-styled music of Counting Crows is
introspective, full of inward self-examination and
tortured-soul vignettes rather than dramatic exposition.
Although singer Adam Duritz might wail in catharsis, minor-key
melancholy is still a specialty.

Formally attired in tuxes and gowns, the Hollywood Bowl
Orchestra contrasted the group’s casual dress. Conductor Vince
Mendoza stood on a podium in front of the band, with the
ensemble behind it. The sorrowful “Round Here” opened the
performance, slowed down even from its original incarnation and
blanketed by a string arrangement that could’ve just as easily
been played on a keyboard — hardly an auspicious start.

The band’s few lighter-hearted ditties would have done
wonders, giving the orchestra a chance to cut loose and
actually have some fun. Part of the night’s problem came in the
selection, which featured too many ballads. It was one somber
song after another.

Players in an orchestra probably would love that change of
pace in riding out backbeats, but instead, the Bowl Orchestra
was shackled with often predictable arrangements, dragging the
songs down.

Composer-arranger Mendoza was told to go in any direction
with the charts, Duritz said, but he opted to take everything
down a dour path. Counting Crows already is a very mannered,
generally midtempo band, and the new arrangements didn’t push
the music at all.

The vivid urgency of “Mr. Jones” was halted by a sluggish
rhythm overlaid with generic movie soundtrack-type
orchestration, when the song’s original galloping tempo
could’ve been enhanced by sweeping strings and heralding horns.
The gliding flight of “Rain King” became a hobbling,
mosey-along number.

There were a few times when the dynamic worked — but
because of the band, not the orchestra. A breakdown during
“Goodnight Elisabeth” featured Duritz almost scatting as his
voice danced around mandolin and piano.

An encore of “Chelsea” featuring Duritz without his
bandmates also was a bit more inventive, anchored by a muted
trumpet with surrounding softer horns and plucked strings.

Sure enough, the fans ate it all up. Loyal to their guys,
they gave several standing ovations. But enthusiastic
arena-rock shout-outs from the audience unnerved Duritz and
also violated the hall’s staid decorum, of course.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter