Counting Crows come to Bend

Published 5:00 am Friday, August 3, 2012

”We put on great shows. We draw from all over the catalog every night. And I think the shows turn out really, really well.”

So says Adam Duritz, the bedreaded, soulful frontman for Counting Crows, a Bay Area band that burst onto the music scene with a pop-gem of a song called “Mr. Jones” from its debut album, “August and Everything After.”

If you’ve been within earshot of a radio since 1994, there is no possible way you have not heard that sha-la-la-la-la song.

But nearly 20 years farther down the road, when Counting Crows say they draw from all over their catalog, that’s a considerable catalog: “Round Here,” “Accidentally in Love,” “A Long December,” “Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman),” and those are just the songs you know off the top of your head.

However, there are no guarantees concertgoers will necessarily hear any one of these songs Tuesday night at Bend’s Les Schwab Amphitheater (see “If you go”), when the band performs in support of its most recent album, a covers collection titled “Underwater Sunshine.” They’re calling the tour The Outlaw Roadshow and bringing along a trio of openers: Seattle’s Kasey Anderson and the Honkies; Field Report, which is the vehicle of singer-songwriter Chris Porterfield (get it? “Field Report” is an anagram of his last name); and Tender Mercies, a band that Counting Crows covered twice on “Underwater Sunshine” and to which a few of the Crows belong.

Asked what fans might expect to hear from Counting Crows, Duritz was unequivocal: “If I knew, I would tell you.”

Duritz says that before shows, he solicits opinions from fans (he’s active on Twitter at the band’s account, @countingcrows), his bandmates and the other acts on the tour.

“Is there anything you want to play tonight? Anything you want to hear tonight?” he asks.

“Everyone texts me back suggestions, and then I just start (the setlist),” Duritz said. “That’s not really to follow (those suggestions), it’s just to remind me of songs and give me something to start with. It also reminds me of songs that maybe I want to play that we haven’t rehearsed in a while.”

Sometimes, he admits, he doesn’t complete the setlist “until the second band” is already on stage. “I try not to do it that way because it makes it hard for the crew,” Duritz said.

There’s a method to that approach.

“I don’t think you owe it to your audience to play any particular song, but I do think you owe it to your audience to play really well, passionately, and not to phone anything in. And I think the best way to never phone anything in is to always play songs you want to play.”

So does that mean they might conceivably leave “Mr. Jones” off a setlist?

“Oh, we do,” he said.

Are people bummed when they do?

“It’s not a vote. I mean, it’s not a popularity contest. I just want to play a great show for them. I think people probably are bummed sometimes. I think it’s silly for them to be bummed. If they just wanted to hear something they could sing along with, they could have the record.

“The truth is, it’s not like we don’t play ‘Mr. Jones,’” he said.

Whew. That was close.

“I mean, I love ‘Mr. Jones.’ It’s great,” he continued. “I’m not going to play ‘Mr. Jones’ on a night when I don’t feel like playing it, because that’s the surest way to end up 20 years down the line not wanting to play things. If you start playing it out of obligation, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

Duritz acknowledged that there are bands who can trot out the hits night after night quite capably, but he argues that the level of attention required for Crows’ songs — which have been called “dramapop tunes” for their detailed imagery — is demanding.

“Our songs require a lot of emotional involvement to sing ’em and play ’em. They’re not very good when we just do them by rote,” he said. “And I think they’re really good when we don’t do it that way. When we play them fully passionately, I think they’re pretty great.”

If you go

What: The Outlaw Roadshow with Counting Crows, Tender Mercies, Kasey Anderson and the Honkies and Field Report

When: 6 p.m. Tuesday, gates open at 5 p.m.

Where: Les Schwab Amphitheater, 344 S.W. Shevlin Hixon Drive, Bend

Cost: $39 or $75 (reserved), plus fees, available at the website below or The Ticket Mill (541-318-5457) in Bend.

Contact: www.bendconcerts.com