First gig since Covid - Counting Crows

On Tuesday night, Cathy and I were in Manchester at our first gig since the entertainment world came to an abrupt stop in 2020.

Counting Crows had already rescheduled their tour dates twice, so we kept checking in the run up to this gig whether it was still going ahead. We had been to the Manchester Apollo before - to see Bastille a few years back. (For various reasons, the most memorable thing I remember about that gig was having to drive back to my parents' house in Shrewsbury via Birmingham to drop off my pal Connor because there were no trains from Manchester to Birmingham after 9pm.) 

I was getting a bit weary of gigs prior to the pandemic as I'd been annoyed by loutish behaviour by other gig-goers, and truthfully was fed up of paying high prices for tickets and then treated like dirt by venues. So I was apprehensive about this. However, I was really impressed with the Apollo as a venue - they had loads of staff on, there were no delays on entry, and there was an orderly queuing system for the bar instead of a scrum!

Here's a pre-show selfie of us in our seats, way up in the second to last row of the Circle/

We were a way back, but we had a great, central view. I clocked the techie with the laptop who walked behind us during the second song of the set and fiddled with some settings. After that the sound mix was absolutely perfect. 

We have seen Counting Crows several times over the years as they have toured different records. I wasn't too up to speed on the latest release, Butter Miracle, as it's only been released on vinyl. There are four songs in a 'suite' that they played one after another about two thirds the way through their set. I enjoyed the songs even though I didn't know them. They also included a healthy mix of older tracks, including the big singles off their first record which got the liveliest response from the crowd. 

It feels to me that the band have grown into themselves more on recent tours and now enjoy giving the fans what they want to hear. There is pride in playing classics like Rain King, Round Here. Mister Jones, and Omaha and holding the mic out into the crowd for them to sing along. They seem to enjoy playing the hits more than they did twenty plus years ago when they were touring their earlier albums. Maybe it's a new sense of perspective - Adam the singer seemed genuinely grateful when he thanked the crowd at the end of the gig for showing up and being fans. 

Here are ten photos from the gig that all look a bit the same but hopefully give you an idea of what our evening was like.