Written by: Jim Berman

As the Crow Flies landed at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater for a killer set of Black Crowe’s favorites and a few choice covers.

Like any proper Black Crowes audience, these folks were pumped! Though there’s much love for the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, I have to say, sometimes I just want rock out to the Crowes and be in that space.

The band hit the stage right on time (9:15) and proceeded to rip through one of their now usual set-lists (more on that in a moment), kicking of with “Remedy,” “Sting Me,” and “Hotel Illness.” While chatting with one of the folks who works for the band, he pointed out that the fairly limited variance in songs night to night was the result of very little time to prepare for the tour. The choice was quality over quantity of songs–in other words, it’s better to learn 30 songs well than many more not so well.

Ok, I’ll buy that!

The set continued with “Nonfiction”/”By Your Side”/”Sometimes Salvation”/”High Head Blues”/and “Good Friday” led into a cover of David Crosby’s “Almost Cut My Hair”

All of the numbers were played with cohesiveness and authority, but the real diamond was the Crosby cover, which featured an incredible extended jam lead by Marcus King who, quite simply, killed it! 

Same story on “Diamond Number Two,” and “Wiser Time”–fabulous jams by Marcus and the rest of the band.

Later, “She Talks to Angels”/”Thorn In My Pride”/”Jealous Again”/and “Hard to Handle”  rounded out the set, followed by an encore tribute to L.A.’s own The Doors with “Peace Frog,” which is one of my personal favorite Doors song, so it was a real treat.

 Thanks for a great night, Chris! Your crow can roost here whenever you like!