Friday Nights and Saturday Mornings

Actually, it wasn't Friday Night or Saturday morning. It was this past Saturday night. I was able to cross another thing off of my lifes To Do list. I keep this list handy in my Do It Did It Handbook. Filed under Concerts to See and written in blue ink over 8 years ago is 'Counting Crows'.

It was a free concert, put on by the NFL for Superbowl XLII Saturday Night at Tempe Town Lake. My husband spent all day at the FBR and was planning on going to the Birds Nest. So, it looked like I would just be going by myself. But this was actually fine with me - fine and fitting.

Basically, Counting Crows music was there for me at a very tumultuous time in my life. There was a lot of change going on: jobs, moving, relationships. A time where I thought I knew myself completely, yet was redefining myself at the same time, and their songs were the soundtrack. Some of their lyrics lead themselves to interpretation, and somehow, my interpretation of them helped me fit them into my life.

That's why this concert was my own personal journey. I had to experience this by myself because I don't think anybody else would understand the meaning it had to me. Either that, or they'd wonder "Why are you rolled up in a ball crying on the ground? Recovering the Satellites is playing!"

Heheheh. No, I didn't cry to any of their songs. In fact, I must've been all smiles. Adam Duritz performance is poetic. Just amazing! The whole bands performance was everything I've always thought it would be and more.

I'm so glad I went. Going by myself allowed me to get pretty close to the stage. Considering I arrived at the venue 45 minutes after the doors opened, this was pretty good. I didn't go to the beer garden section since a woman hanging out solo shouldn't be around any drunk people. However, being solo granted me the ability to weave my way through the crowd to about 200 feet away from the stage without getting too many dirty "don't-you-dare-stand-in-front-of-me" looks. Still, the video I took is pretty poor quality, but the audio is fine.

Anyway, A Long December is the one song Adam actually sat in front of the piano and played. Thank goodness they played that song because the guy behind me was losing his voice yelling it out since before the opening act started playing. Adam did screw up on a chord in the middle of it, but he handled that with charm by adding "I f*d up the chord" to the lyrics. Listen for it about at about minute 2:37.



Counting Crows' new double album, Friday Nights and Saturday Mornings, is scheduled to be released on March 25th. You can go here to download two mp3's from it for free. "When I dream of Michaelangelo" is one of the first songs they played that night and it sounds pretty good. Nice to know that they've got some new stuff coming out.