The Counting Crows have a real knack for overhauling the recorded versions of their songs into something fresh for the stage. They alter rhythms, tempos and even melodies without alienating the audience by rendering them unrecognizable. This is good: You never feel as if you're getting a rote rehashing of the band's catalogue. More good stuff: The band's been together a long time, so it's found that zone that combines precision and looseness. Adam Duritz is a particularly engaging frontman, free-spirited, funny and confessional. I'm aware that there exists a legion of hipsters that thinks the Counting Crows are dogshit — and other folks who find the band irritating for one reason or another — but I am a straight-up fan. It's rare to find a band with a passel of good songs and the panache to re-imagine them without simply padding them with instrumental jams.
I'm not nearly as excited about seeing Goo Goo Dolls, the one-time Replacements wannabes who smoothed out their sound and became a hit-making adult alternative band. Opening the show will be Eliot Morris, a rising singer/songwriter who's been called "equal parts Townes Van Zant and Jackson Browne."
Counting Crows, Goo Goo Dolls, Eliot Morris, Fri., Sept. 1, 7 p.m., Ford Amphitheatre, Tampa. $67.50, $49.50, $39.50. www.livenation.com.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.