I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen Counting Crows. It’s definitely the most I’ve seen any band and definitely more than ten shows, but beyond that, things get hazy. I could 100% rebuild an accurate count and while that’s the kind of thing I’m prone to doing in my life, I somehow feel unmotivated to do so at this juncture. If you want to start to piece it together yourself, you can start with my list of shows attended from 1996-2004, then proceed to search Counting Crows in the search bar over on the side of this blog, which will reveal some write-ups of particularly memorable shows, for example, in 2010, 2014, and later in 2014.

That last show is one of a particular pattern of show which is the Counting Crows casino concert, usually but not always in AC, which I would often attend with the friend still best known in this space as Fish, though I have stopped at his request using this moniker to him for many years. Matt, a name he shares with countless other friends, making the disambiguation feel like an ultimate necessity to me in contexts where he’s not in front of me (and sometimes contexts where he is). We would go to the show and enjoy the hell out of it, then go play poker nearly all night. The first time he did this, his future wife couldn’t believe that he was capable of such a thing, it felt so out of character to the man she knew. Not that she had a problem with it, she was just surprised and, I detected, perhaps a little impressed.

Matt lives in London now and we both have children, but CC was playing back-to-back nights in casinos a short drive from Philadelphia and my wife knows how much I’m hurting. It’s funny that I didn’t think of this myself, or that I didn’t maybe anticipate that she would, but after the disastrous migraine that stole much of Thursday, my only thought when seeing Counting Crows post about their tour on social media was that I hoped they were having a good time and Adam Duritz sure looks weird without his dreadlocks. But Friday morning, shortly before I completed my tasks to reach our luxurious perk of summer Friday afternoons off, she informed me that I would be receiving one ticket to go up to Bethlehem, PA to see my favorite band. Matt himself always used to tell me it was ridiculous to hope I’d find someone who could understand me, but it was quite a moment when she looked at me with a small smile and said “I figured this would be a good time for you to go to a show by yourself and cry.”

And for those of you who may not know Alex, or know me as well as she does, this may sound a little strange. But, of course, I love going to shows solo and I love Counting Crows and I absolutely love to cry. So all three together? Sign me up!

The opener was Dashboard Confessional, who I saw, again with Matt, opening for the Weakerthans in a tiny student cafe at UCSD 22 years ago. I say that, but none of the same people played the two shows except the band’s lead singer. See? Like so many bands who’ve aged past their popularity but can still fill a room with now-40-year-olds (and sometimes their kids), they’ve reloaded with younger bandmates who look like they may have grown up listening to the band. You can think there’s something a little bit sad about this until you consider how amazing it would be to be falling in love with music as a teenager and get to grow up performing it as part of some semblance of the actual band.

In any case, Dashboard always felt like a band I probably should have liked but never quite got into, but enough of their songs were sufficiently familiar and emotional that they were the perfect warmup to the main event. And the fact that so many folks were there for them enabled me to move up the length of 75% of the room after their set ended, which was crucial to my enjoyment of CC as the back of the room feels far too distant for something so powerful.

I was prepared to weep, but I was surprised by the songs that hit me and how they did. The thing about CC’s emotional journey is that so much of it is about failed romance and lost love. An emotional touchstone that’s good for a roller-coaster at any time, to be sure, but not what was going to resonate with me most when reeling from the sudden death of my father. But lyrics have a habit of laying in wait, doubly so the intimately detailed and personal yet universally accessible lines penned by the himself dissociative Duritz. And the first few songs unexpectedly hit me like a ton of bricks: “Hard Candy” out of the gate referencing a dream of a dead parent the night after I’d had one, “Richard Manuel is Dead” noting the thoughts on mortality prompted by an unexpected death, and “Colorblind” wrestling so personally with the isolation and craving of the individual human condition.

But it was “Omaha” this night that destroyed me. A beloved classic to be sure, a staple that they may have played at literally every one of their shows I’ve attended (if not every one ever), but not something I was expecting to hit me hard or at all. Of course the reference to the old man trying to recapture his youth was there, but the back half of the simple refrained chorus was devastating:

It’s the heart that matters more
Think you better turn your ticket in
And get your money back at the door

I’m grateful that the show let up a little after that, my cheeks soaked and my hydration already slipping. “Catapult” almost felt like a direct reference to the 2010 show when that was the apex emotional moment, where I could feel how important that had been then and how much less crucial it was now and how that, in itself, almost felt like healing, a healing that could imply that this too would someday pass and feel better. But there were little moments of punctuation to come. Joni Mitchell’s famous refrain just reminding me that I did know what I had before it was gone, though of course you still can’t anticipate how the loss will feel. “Sometimes memories are all that we’ve got.” And when I think of heaven… although somehow he skipped the crucial afterthought “I think of dying” in an uncharacteristic refusal to mix either “Round Here” or “Rain King” with other tunes as so often is featured at CC shows.

Even Dashboard had one more salvo when they came back to sing “So Long, So Long” with both bands in full:

I was certain that the season could be held between my arms
Well just as summer’s hold is fleeting
I was here but now I’m gone…
I’m gone, I’m gone, I’m gone…

It echoed the acoustic and surprising “Angels of the Silences” from much earlier, a version that had surprised even Adam, who implied it hadn’t been in the intended setlist: “We don’t do that one much anymore, but that sounded great! I just really love playing that song.”

And of course the closing, the song that’s become Graham’s most enduring lullaby despite the inappropriateness of the opening lyrics for children, the send-off to so many CC shows. For ultimately everything I feel about my father is reflected in my son, somehow, in the symmetry of life at this stage for me. It is impossible for a father to face one’s father’s mortality without imagining this moment for one’s child(ren). Just as I have such vivid images of my father sobbing on a bedspread at the La Quinta Inn in April 1987 after his father had died.

I played poker for hours after. I went to Waffle House after that. I did the thing right and it felt comforting, but still sad, a shadow of the joy and highs I’m used to feeling, but still of solace in light of the losses. So much of how we get through death is to ultimately stand up and say “I’m still here.” It’s a simple thought, but one that never fails to feel powerful. As tragic as it is to die, it’s an incredible miracle to live.

Counting Crows
21 July 2023
Wind Creek Casino – Bethlehem, PA
with Dashboard Confessional

Hard Candy
Richard Manuel is Dead
Mr. Jones
Colorblind
Butterfly in Reverse
Omaha
Good Time
Catapult
Washington Square
Angels of the Silences (acoustic)
Big Yellow Taxi
Round Here
Tall Grass
Elevator Boots
Angel of 14th Street
Bobby and the Rat-Kings
Rain King
A Long December
—
Time and Time Again
So Long, So Long [by and with Dashboard Confessional]
Hanginaround [with Dashboard Confessional]
Holiday in Spain

This is the seventh post in the One Thing series.

#6: Bed by Day
#5: Picking Plums
#4: Forgive, Don’t Forget
#3: Call Your Mother
#2: In the Land of Make-Believe
#1: Wistful Wisteria
Introduction: Announcement and Rules