Music
“We’re the one f****** rock ’n’ roll band in any respect these items,” Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson lamented throughout Day 2 at Boston Calling 2025.
From the thundering opening strains of “No Communicate No Slave” — off The Black Crowes’ second album, “The Southern Concord and Musical Companion” — Chris Robinson and firm appeared to have one thing to show throughout their Saturday Blue Stage set at Boston Calling. Properly, particularly Chris Robinson.
“There ARE some rock ’n’ roll folks right here at this time!” he declared after that first quantity, as the group lastly began to fill in behind the stalwarts in entrance of the stage. (All people else was apparently at Avril Lavigne.) And later he lamented how lonely the band will get once they play a music pageant. “We’re the one f—in’ rock ’n’ roll band in any respect these items.”
It’s true that, on Saturday anyway, alt-rock and punk-pop had been ruling the day at Boston Calling. However Robinson needn’t have been involved about his band’s skill to hold the blues-based, guitar-driven rock ’n’ roll torch — Robinson, and his brother Wealthy on guitar, can nonetheless rev issues up similar to they did again in 1990, once they rescued us from the Paula Abdul wasteland of up to date common music and supplied the proper springboard for the grunge motion simply across the nook.
In the event you’re amongst those that’ve adopted them since then however have did not see them stay (responsible), Chris Robinson’s stage presence could haven’t been precisely what you’ve pictured all these years. Seems he’s a prancer, somebody who clearly subscribes to the Mick Jagger and Peter Wolf college of gesticulation. (Or possibly he’s preparing for his upcoming gig singing and twirling mic stands with The Joe Perry Challenge, which hits Fenway with The Who in August.)
Mix that together with his comparatively quick tresses and watermelon-colored jacket (and sun shades!), and he could not have match the traditional classic-rocker profile. However he had stage presence to beat the band (actually) and his voice — possibly a bit of shoutier and fewer textured than it was within the ’90s, however not by a lot — supplied a raucous rock injection that left the followers who spurned Avril to see the Crowes in onerous rock heaven.
Not that it was all barn burners — gradual burn blues had been the order of the day on a riveting “Seeing Issues” off their first album, and Erik Deutsch’s keyboards propelled a smoky groove for “Thorn in My Satisfaction.” However it was rollicking, raging blues and rock that Robinson and crew had been decided to ship, and the band greater than got here by with pounding takes on outdated favorites like “Sting Me,” “Twice as Arduous,” and a wild and wooly run by their first hit, Otis Studying’s “Arduous to Deal with.” (“We’ve been ridin’ this one a very long time,” Robinson famous.)
The Black Crowes are nonetheless onerous to deal with. #bostoncalling
— Pete Chianca (@pchianca.bsky.social) Could 25, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Throw in just a few highlights from their wonderful newest album, final 12 months’s “Happiness Bastards” — ”Wanting and Ready” specifically match proper into the traditional lineup — and a blazing nearer with “Treatment,” and also you’ve acquired a set that left the assembled spent and happy. “That’s what rock ’n’ roll appears like, keep in mind that sh—?” Robinson requested towards the tip, and people fortunate sufficient to see them Saturday undoubtedly did.
Setlist for Black Crowes at Boston Calling on Saturday:
- No Communicate No Slave
- Rats and Clowns
- Twice as Arduous
- Sting Me
- Seeing Issues
- Soul Singing
- Arduous to Deal with
- Thorn in My Satisfaction
- Wanting and Ready
- Treatment
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