There is always an element of uncertainty for a student critic — always a constant worry. Maybe the show won’t start on time and said critic may have to wait around getting drunk and screaming for Kate Hudson to come on-stage by the time the show starts. Maybe the show starts early and said critic may regret having stayed home to play drinking games during G-Dub’s Special Report (played by taking 2 sips during each mispronunciation and 1 sip during each applause line) since he can’t remember the music or the set list or read his notes the next day.
The tickets may not be there, or there will not be enough. The employees may be angry and not want to let the poor, hard-working reporter in.
But, thankfully, the Chris Robinson show Wednesday night went about as smoothly as I could have hoped for, and the show many had been looking forward to unfolded almost exactly as planned.
The Black Crowes never seemed that special, but the Newport is still one of the best places to see music in Columbus. Plus, Chris Robinson seems to be doing even more interesting things now than when he was with the Crowes.
His new CD has been consistently praised as being a nice, fresh change of pace. The direction he is taking has been hailed as sufficiently different from the past, asserting that Robinson’s new music is not a desperate attempt to replicate the sound of the old band, an unfortunate trend others have followed when they break from their bands to do solo work.
One good thing about seeing a member of a formerly great band touring on his own — especially the frontman — is he gets to handpick the best musicians to work with, ones most likely even better-suited to the music than those he got famous with.
For the most part the musicians did just what they needed to do: follow the frontman and add their own influences without taking the songs somewhere they shouldn’t go. Robinson himself, looking a lot like what most people think Jesus may have looked like, was much more humble than would be expected. I guess he couldn’t “resurrect” the crowd with his well-known dance moves. And he sure didn’t turn any water into wine, since beers were sold at a cool $4 apiece.
(Sorry.)
Robinson’s band members were indeed great musicians, but — as most know — great musicians don’t always make great music.
In fact, great musicians can make really boring music. Especially when a show takes an odd turn and begins to turn to jam-based yo-yo-smoke-this-pipe-fool mood music.
Thus, the show was disappointing, ending as just another chapter in the great jam band history book.
It is not to say that jam bands do not offer something interesting to listeners, only that it is sad to see a rock band — especially one fueled by the songwriting skills and street cred Robinson has from his past work — fall into the played-out Grateful Dead black hole sucking in so many contemporary bands.
What is interesting (or unfortunate, depending on how one looks at it) is not only how many bands have fallen into the Phish hole, but the term “jam” has come to be defined as only the mellow post-Dead nonsense. The history of a rock, blues, jazz and country have been filled with “jam” bands, ones actually experimenting with sound and what could be done with it artistically.
But now, however, “jam” music has become so homogenous. It seems any band working out a song for more than three minutes or in a pattern other than verse-chorus-verse becomes another experiment in laid-back blues progressions over conga drums on a stage in a haze of cherry-flavored incense.
Unfortunately, the same pattern was followed by the Chris Robinson and the International Hippie All-Stars. It wasn’t that they did a bad job at what they did. It’s just that what they did has been done so many times — especially recently — even a solid “jam” set doesn’t hit home for anyone not following Phish to the Everglades for New Year’s Eve.
