Product Description

In putting out ACROSS A WIRE as a live double-album, Counting Crows appear to be living on the edge of audacity having only released two records. These San Francisco natives blow away any of these notions with the unique complexity and nuance found within their music and live presentation. WIRE shows off two sides of the same coin by including performances from VH1 Storytellers and MTV Live From The 10 Spot. The audio version of Storytellers omits any narration regarding song origin and focuses entirely on reworked versions of the band's material.
Songs such as "Round Here" and "Have You Seen Me Lately?" are radically stripped down so that by the time the full band is playing on "Ghost Train", the shimmering guitar and melancholy organ interplay make for a mesmerising experience. On disc two, the Crows forgo restraint and tear into numbers such as "Angels Of The Silences" and "Have You Seen Me Lately?", complete with slashing guitars and pounding piano. Recorded on the last date of their American tour, cuts like "Children In Bloom" and "A Long December" take on an added poignancy as the connection between fans and bandis palpable even through a set of headphones.

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Round Here
2. Have You Seen Me Lately?
3. Angels Of The Silences
4. Catapult
5. Mr. Jones
6. Rain King
7. Mercury
8. Ghost Train
9. Anna Begins
10. Chelsea

Disc 2:

1. Recovering The Satellites
2. Angels Of The Silences
3. Rain King
4. Sullivan Street
5. Children In Bloom
6. Have You Seen Me Lately?
7. Raining In Baltimore
8. Round Here
9. I'm Not Sleeping
10. A Murder Of One
11. A Long December
12. Walkaways

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14229 in Music
• Released on: 2002-12-23
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Live
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Too much too soon is the signture of so many bands who, thanks to the fleeting fame that accompanies music-video breakthroughs, are famous before their time and has-beens five minutes later. You could be excused for thinking that's the case with Counting Crows, darlings of both MTV and VH1, who here release a double concert album after only two studio albums. But you'd be wrong. The set, an acoustic disc recorded for VH1 and an electric one from MTV, proves how well the oft-bootlegged Crows have earned their reputation as a smoking live band. It also shows how elastic their rambling and evocative songs can be, some of which appear on both discs but in vastly different arrangements. People may tire of vocalist Adam Duritz's perpetually-wounded-soldier-of-love act, but this is one band whose success was hard-won and is richly deserved. --Daniel Durchholz

From Amazon.com
Too much too soon is the m.o. of so many bands who, thanks to the fleeting fame that accompanies music-video breakthroughs, are famous before their time and has-beens five minutes later. You could be excused for thinking that's the case with Counting Crows, darlings of both MTV and VH1, who here release a double concert CD after only two studio albums. But you'd be wrong. The set, an acoustic disc recorded for VH1's Storytellers and an electric one from MTV's Live from the 10 Spot, proves how well the oft-bootlegged Crows have earned their reputation as a smoking live band. It also shows how elastic their rambling and evocative songs can be, some of which appear on both discs but in vastly different arrangements. People may tire of vocalist Adam Duritz's perpetually-wounded-soldier-of-love act, but this is one band whose success was hard-won and is richly deserved. --Daniel Durchholz

Customer Reviews

technically good, but...
i love counting crows, especially the first and second albums. there's a raw, honest emotion to them that seems to have left the crows' more recent effort, hard candy. the disillusion i felt with the band's latest work left me wanting a return to the good old days, so when i discovered this early live album and read the rave reviews on amazon i bought it on spec with great anticipation.

and fair's fair. a lot of work and talent went into this. it is a testament to counting crows that they are able to incorporate so much improvisation into a live show and still stay tight. but i feel that in doing so they have bypassed much of what makes the crows such a hugely listenable band. the massive amount of technically excellent improvised reworking of rhythm and melody has rendered their best and catchiest songs such as 'mr jones' and 'angels of the silences' nearly unrecognisable and frustratingly hard to follow. sometimes it works, but more often it doesn't, and by the end of the second disc i was wondering why they were trying to fix what most definitely was not broken in the first place.

Ignore All Groupies
I love Counting Crows, always have. I get `August..' the 1st album and I love the 2nd (Satellites). I've seen CC live but have never been a fan of live music as a whole. For a fan of a band famous for their live shows who loves the studio work this is a must.

What this does is distil 2 great albums into firstly a lively-and-strong-neat-Scotch-whisky of a CD to be played at a Glasgow piss-up (the 10 Spot live CD) and secondly a thrice-matured-Irish-Whiskey acoustic CD ready to be played the morning after while half awake (the VH1 Storytellers part). I'm off to listen to the Storytellers now..... bye bye. ZZZZZ(this is beautiful)ZZZZZZZzzzzzz zzz zzz z z ..

The Final installment
DON'T BUY THIS ALBUM!!! unless you already own all other counting crows albums except Hard Candy, because you won't truely understand the genius involved in the creation of some of the hybrid songs on this album. The first CD adds a beautiful peace to all the counting crows songs as it is mainly acoustic, Adam Duritz is sublime throughout, even if you think you've heard the songs before by looking at the track list, you actually haven't this isn't the usual live album where everything sounds the same but worse for whatever reason like you realise the singer can't sing, I'll tell you this, Adam Duritz sounds even better live as the passion and complexity isn't lost in the recording studio this time. The second CD is far more upbeat with some of the crows songs actually rocked up a little, listen to this on the best music system in your house for every sure detail, and give it the solid 2 hours it deserves with no other distractions, this will be your favourite album after just one listen if you have loved all of the crows other albums, its just perfect.