Concert review: Black Crowes at Palladium Ballroom

by Ron Dempesmeier

On an unusually cold evening in Dallas (Friday, Nov. 21), the Black Crowes brought some typically hot rock to the Palladium Ballroom audience. The band proved they are not going to be pigeonholed as just a “Classic Rock” act content to play their hits from over 15 years ago. Their set featured 6 songs from their latest release, Warpaint. Luckily, this is the best album the Black Crowes have released since 1994, so the songs went over very well in concert.

Conspicuous in their absence were hits like “Jealous Again”, “Hard To Handle” and the ballads “She Talks To Angels” and “Thorn In My Pride”. Probably the best known song of the evening to a casual fan would have been “Remedy”. The Black Crowes vary their set lists widely in their tours and they have become somewhat akin to bands like the Grateful Dead and Little Feat who played as much for themselves and the sheer enjoyment of making music as for the audience.

The band opened with the inspirational “Wounded Bird” which asks the subject to stop looking back at his regrets and “set your mind to fly.” This was followed by syncopated hard rockers “A Conspiracy” and “Horsehead” which were played with punchy abandon. That led into a bluesy “Walk Believer Walk”. Lead singer Chris Robinson got to demonstrate his harmonica skills on “Good Friday”.

The band is also well known for covering songs from their 60s/70s heroes and this evening they started with the Bonnie Bramlett and Eric Clapton song “Don’t Know Why”. They also did the lovely Dillard & Clark ballad “Polly” by Gene Clark (also of The Byrds fame and one of the forefathers of Country Rock).

The band went into a quieter set of music when drummer Steve Gorman came to the front of the stage to play a hand drum and guitarist Rich Robinson strummed a twelve string acoustic for the raga influenced “Whoa Mule”. “Oh Josephine” from Warpaint has become the beautiful ballad that matched “She Talks To Angels” in the hearts of the audience tonight. The band definitely stretched it out and gave it a grand finish.

One of the older songs performed was “My Morning Song” which was about as whiplash, hard rocking as the Black Crowes got. This song was a guitar bonanza with plenty of chances for Rich Robinson and Luther Dickinson to exchange 6 string salvos. This was followed by “Movin’ On Down The Line” which starts out with the feel good vibe of “It’s all right brother, it’s all right sister” and mines a groovy psychedelic vein of music.

“Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution” proved that the band could also kick out a good time rocker in the same style as The Faces. The encore was a traditional song called “Cold, Rain And Snow” which was played at many a Grateful Dead show. It was an appropriate song for the climate outside, but inside the Palladium the good vibes of the show warmed the crowd.

* Here's the set list:

Wounded Bird | A Conspiracy | Horsehead | Walk Believer Walk | Good Friday | One Mirror Too Many | Don’t Know Why | Whoa Mule | Polly | Oh Josephine | My Morning Song | Movin’ On Down The Line | She Gave Good Sunflower | Remedy | Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution

Encore: Cold, Rain And Snow

This review was submitted by a member of the Pegasus News community