{"id":973,"date":"2016-08-23T21:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T21:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=973"},"modified":"2026-06-27T21:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T21:04:16","slug":"black-crowes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=973","title":{"rendered":"Black Crowes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 2001, Sunfest, West Palm Beach, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the show I was pretty sure was going to be the Black Crowes last one, not because of internal trouble, but because of electrocution<\/p>\n

While the festival is called Sunfest, in 2001 it was Rainfest, and it was coming down hard on this day. There shouldn\u2019t have been a show, the outdoor stage had a roof of sorts, but it didn\u2019t stop the sideways rain from covering the stage, the instruments, the electronics. I was sure a raincheck was in order, but here come the Robinson brothers set to give it a go.<\/p>\n

I saw the Black Crowes once before, early in their career. I was living in Atlanta in 1992 and the Crowes played the Great Pot Festival in Piedmont Park to a huge crowd (and a cloud of smoke). I wasn\u2019t close to the stage, and was there more for the atmosphere of it than the band, though there\u2019s no denying Shake Your Money Maker<\/em> and The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion<\/em> aren\u2019t solid albums. Bands don\u2019t last for decades if they don\u2019t make good music.<\/p>\n

This show had the Crowes at their rootsy best, eschewing their “hits” and concentrating solely on songs from their recent album (2001 Lions<\/em>) and Southern Harmony<\/em>, playing \u201cSting Me,\u201d \u201cBad Luck Blue Eyes\u201d and \u201cBlack Moon Creeping\u201d from the latter. Chris Robinson embraced the rain, playing to the crowd, while Rich, strapped with the electric guitar, almost dared the rain to kill him. During one long guitar solo, he closed his eyes and just jammed as water splashed everywhere. Crazy.<\/p>\n

Being a music festival, there\u2019s always a chance for collaboration, and who would walk on stage 45 minutes in \u2014 George Clinton. The master of funk, who Chris would call his grandfather, joined the band on \u201cYoung Man Old Man,\u201d then sang his classic \u201cGive Up the Funk\u201d to the delight of the wet crowd. The Crowes ripped into Remedy for good measure, as the rain lifted ever so slightly.<\/p>\n

Can you believe the band returned for an encore? It was on song \u2014 \u201cCosmic Friend\u201d \u2014 but it proved the Crowes as a band willing to put itself in danger for its fans. I never forgot that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2001, Sunfest, West Palm Beach, Fla. It was the show I was pretty sure was going to be the Black Crowes last one, not because of internal trouble, but because of electrocution While the festival is called Sunfest, in 2001 it was Rainfest, and it was coming down hard on this day. There shouldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[171],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-black-crowes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":975,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions\/975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}