When The Black Crowes return for their encore, singer Chris Robinson asks the crowd to “Put your hands together for Jim Jones All Stars” before adding: “That’s the real rock’n’roll business right there.”
He’s not wrong. There is something of a baby E St Band about the horn-laden set the nine-piece band play. Whether it is “Cement Mixer” or “Burning Your House Down” – a couple of Jim Jones originals that are shared – or one of the covers, “Troglodyte” being perhaps the best example, there is a lot of primal dirty stuff going on. “Gimme The Grease” is aptly named, that is for sure.
“Run Run Run (Velvet U)” has apparently been requested by the headliner’s singer himself, and for all Jones’s fire and brimstone preacher style, there is a real soul about work like “Lovers Prayer”.
As the band cuts loose for one more time with “512” there is something to be said for distilling rock’n’roll down to its very essence and that is what Jim Jones All Stars do this evening.
And speaking of the Black Crowes encore, I’m not sure how many of us expected it to be “God’s Got It” a cover that was on the “Warpaint” record (the only one they play from it as well) but we are where we are, and it is turned into a Stones style romp.
The brothers Robinson have a habit of confounding expectations though. Who would have thought, given the bitter split they would have got back together at all and who would have thought they’d make new music as good as the “Happiness Bastards” album?
But they did, and that new album is right up there in the pantheon of their material, they know it too.
That is surely why they play so much of it in this set. “Bedside Manners” Its opening song performs those duties here as well, and when they follow it up with “Rats And Clowns”, its line about: “And if it ain’t killed me yet, I said, ‘It never will'” seems to swagger out of Robinson’s mouth in almost a dare.
But if the new songs are magnificent, then it needs saying that 34 years ago, they released a debut album (and a follow-up second a couple of years later) that is little short of a masterpiece (as is album number two).
And they seem happy to play songs from it this time, which hasn’t always been the case when you see them. “Twice As Hard” is a joyous thing, “Horsehead” from an album that I always saw as going back to their roots, likewise, and if you don’t enjoy “Stare It Cold” I’d venture to suggest you didn’t like rock’n’roll.
However, tonight as much as this is a celebration of the music, this is celebration of Black Crowes in 2024 “Cross Your Fingers” and “Wilted Rose” underline that. And what of the siblings? Well, they seem happy now, Chris in his sparkly shoes, giving his best Mick Jagger impression, and Rich effortlessly cool behind his guitar, never speaking except to charge some idiot who threw a CD at him (apparently in an attempt to get him to sign it – it didn’t work….).
Chris has lost none of his vocal ability either. “Thorn In My Pride” proves that, an interest in me it is turned into something of a jam. However unlike some occasions when I’ve seen the band it is the only one and unlike other times, rather than being about musicianship this is a celebration of the songs.
Even the ones that aren’t their originals, like “Hard To Handle” (or “Road Runner” which they had done a little earlier).
“She Talks To Angels” is both glorious and communal, “Bleed It Dry” from the new material and “No Speak No Slave” Dusted off from the old, have plenty in common, but a night like this, could only see its main set end in one way, and there won’t be many knockout combinations Like “Jealous Again” and “Remedy” anywhere else this year.
And the Black Crowes belong in those upper echelons. A classic rock band themselves these days, just like the ones they used to listen to and wanted to emulate, they seem now much more ready to accept that and to find the fun in what they do.
Let’s make no bones about this, The Black Crowes have been one of my favourite bands since I became transfixed by “…Moneymaker” in the spring of 1990. There is no point in me denying it. However (and I wasn’t on any guestlists tonight to review this), I would argue that this current version of the band is perhaps the most relaxed and at ease they have ever been.
And as such, even though they have been all too infrequent visitors to these shores in that time – this is without question the best show I’ve ever seen them play.
