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Counting Crows fail to fly with symphony

Posted on: Thursday, 27 October 2005, 07:25 CDT

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

Source: REUTERS

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