A light breeze fluttered through a crowd upward of 13,000 fans buzzing with anticipation to catch Maroon 5 and Counting Crows live Saturday night at the Superpages.com Center.
Following opener Augustana to the stage Maroon 5 delighted the crowd by delivering a 70-minute set heavy with some of the band’s most popular hits. Largely upbeat, the songs included “Wake Up Call,” “She will be Loved,” “Sunday Morning,” “Won’t go Home Without You” and ended on a high note with “This Love.”
Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine dazzled the audience with surprisingly powerful vocals and charismatic stage presence in a plain, white T-shirt, leaving no adoring female fans disappointed.
After Maroon 5’s heavily instrumental set was over, Counting Crows took the stage. Instead of following a formula of hits sure to please like the arena’s predecessors, the Crows decided to take more of a risk by staying mostly acoustic and adding some new songs into the mix.
There was an interesting moment when Crows lead singer Adam Duritz announced the band wanted to pay a tribute to less successful musicians by playing a few friends’ songs rehearsed once in the dressing room. The performance on these numbers did not disappoint, but fans would undoubtedly rather have heard some of the band’s (for the most part ignored) old favorites instead.
Counting Crows stuck to slower songs, which made for an impressive musical performance, but may not have been as enjoyable for concertgoers. The band did play one if its biggest hits “Mr. Jones,” but not quite the same version many fans know and love. The acoustic rendition was fine, but again, a little slow and probably not as much of a crowd-pleaser as the original would have been. In fact, many fans appeared to be dozing off in the middle of the set because the music was more relaxing than anything else.
Multicolored lights and large video screens joined the excellent acoustics in both sets to raise the overall entertainment factor of the Superpages.com venue to the next level. Each band’s sound was incredible and both put on technically good, albeit very different, performances.
