THE BLACK CROWES & DIRTY HONEY @ American Family Insurance Amphitheater – Milwaukee, WI
August 8, 2021
Review by Rick Kramer
Photos by David Urmanski
At long last, with spectacular views of Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee skyline, the highly-anticipated reunion of The Black Crowes rolled into the newly renovated 23,000 seat American Family Insurance Amphitheater Sunday night for the 30th anniversary tour of the band’s landmark debut release, Shake Your Money Maker. Delayed by a pandemic, but not diminished, the Crowes treated their fans to the past due celebration of their seminal album which was “played in its entirety plus all the hits!”
The night commenced with Los Angeles rockers Dirty Honey landing the coveted slot as direct supporting act on The Black Crowes’ summer tour wasting no time unleashing their unique, hair-raising performance on the unsuspecting Milwaukee crowd. Often compared to some the greatest rock bands in history including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, the blues rock quartet seemed eager to get reacquainted with rock fans far and wide after exploding onto the scene in 2019 with the release of their self-titled debut EP and making music history by becoming the only unsigned artists ever to hit #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart with their debut track “When I’m Gone.”
Even in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the band managed to take #3 at Rock Radio with their second single, “Rollin 7s” and tallied more than 6.1 million views on YouTube with the release of the song’s subsequent music video. Moreover, Dirty Honey was named Canadian Rock Radio’s #1 International Breakout Artist of 2019 and was nominated as Best New Rock/Alternative Artist for the 2020 iHeartRadio Music Awards in addition to being identified as an “Artist You Need To Know” by Rolling Stone.
While Dirty Honey’s rise to the top has been expeditious, it certainly has not gone without hardship along the way. Singer Marc LaBelle went from being homeless in L.A., sleeping in his car, showering at the local gym and scrounging for free wi-fi from a local coffee shop before joining his bandmates on stage for more than a dozen major music festivals, opening for powerhouse rockers The Who, Guns N’ Roses and Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators and performing to sold-out crowds on their first-ever headline tour which wrapped up in 2020. The band also released “California Dreamin'” on March 5, 2021 which was their third consecutive single featured in the Top 15 at Rock Radio prior to releasing their self-titled debut album a month and a half later.
Fans fortunate enough to arrive early Sunday night witnessed a great rock band in the making. LaBelle stimulated the crowd early with a welcomed shout-out to Milwaukee, yelling it was “Good to be in a rock n roll town, y’all!” From there, the west coast rockers rolled out a 60-minute set, pulsating every last ounce of sound from their gear, from guitarist John Notto moving effortlessly between riffs, rhythm chord progressions and shredding solos to drummer Corey Coverstone and bassist Justin Smolian going above and beyond to fill the vocal and guitar gaps with a solid, punchy rhythm blend.
While Dirty Honey spent most of their time on stage playing songs from their eponymous 2021 release, LaBelle and bandmates cheered and inspired their fellow musicians to perform individual solos during the last half of the set to the delight and amazement of the howling Milwaukee crowd. Throughout their set, there were many moments where the four-piece sounded like there were eight guys on stage, but none were more spectacular than Dirty Honey’s cover of Aerosmith’s “Last Child.”
Being compared to bands like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin is certainly lofty praise, but all too often bands with big hair, retro clothes and high-pitched vocals will send entertainment writers into a 70’s coma, yearning for times long gone. The difference with Dirty Honey is that, while they might look like they were transported from 1975, they showed they are no novelty act and will have a place at the table in 2021 and beyond. If the reaction of the Sunday night crowd bellowing for more as Dirty Honey took their final bow, is any indication of future success, these guys will be moving further up the ladder in short order.
Next up, the stage was set up with a row of stacked 2×12 cabinets and guitar amplifiers on each side of a drum riser positioned near exact center of stage with a dark, printed backdrop adorning the back wall from roof to floor displaying a brick wall, large window, small balcony to the right and large doorway to the left where two cartoon crows watched the show. Backing vocalists, Mackenzie Adams and Leslie Grant, were stationed to the back-right of the recently constructed southern-style porch in addition to two rectangular ‘shacks’ positioned on each side of the stage with real balconies where masked fans watched from above. The final touch was a multitude of hanging lights that conjoined the rest of the stage to portray a setting reminiscent of an old saloon.
The main event got under way with a young lady walking up to a Wurlitzer Jukebox, positioned between guitar cabinets, to play a song. As the 1961 recording of “Shake Your Money Maker” blared over the PA, she strolled over to a bar, complete with a bartender and a stocked wall of liquor, where the band was drinking, smiling and chatting up a storm. While it appeared as though the carousing over cocktails could have gone on all night, the bar’s ‘patrons’ casually took their instruments and positions on stage and Rich Robinson interrupted the jukebox with his eminent riff from the Shake Your Money Maker opener, “Twice as Hard.” A spotlight quickly found him on far-right of the stage in black pants and purple sport coat, toting a Zemaitis “disc-front” guitar. The often-stoic axe-man seemed, by his standards, pretty jacked up as he stepped back-and-forth to an imperceptible pulse, letting his strumming arm follow through up to his shoulder at the end of each riff’s upstroke.
Perched on the right-front corner of the drum riser and concealed by a large blue umbrella with the Black Crowes logo, lead singer Chris Robinson suddenly burst forth like a piece of the stage coming to life. Twirling, sauntering and bobbing, dressed in a black suit with matching gaucho hat, the always flamboyant half of the Robinson brothers enthralled the 10,000 plus fans who had waited out 2020 for the celebration tour.
Both brothers were sporting shoulder length hair and beards, though Chris looked like he may have shaved last week. The only indication that so many years had passed was a touch of gray around each of their chins as Chris’s voice sounded the same as it did during the band’s inception. When Chris crooned the first verse of the opener, the already cheering crowd surged to yet another level. He was stunning as he soared over the Crowe’s anthemic riffs with that just barely perceptible edge-of-cracking quality that had turned the band from a blues-rock jam band to the unique blend of southern soul-blues-rock that we know today resulting in over 30 million albums sold to date.
Likewise, the tour brought back long-time bassist, Sven Pipien, as a recent re-addition to the band. With the exception of the jubilant crowd of concert-goers, Pipien’s smile may have been the widest of the night. Another obscure yet interesting piece of trivia was that the bartender, dressed in a pink jacket and bow-tie, stayed behind the bar for the entire performance.
After the blistering opener, Chris Robinson took a second to exclaim to the crowd “Welcome to the Sunday night rock n roll show!” before the band dove into mega-hit “Jealous Again.” “Sister Luck” quickly followed and got another, and not the last of the evening, bid “welcome to the Sunday night rock n roll show” from the high-energy frontman.
The fifth song on the setlist, “Seeing Things” probably got the most personal introduction when the caroler gave some insight into the making of Shake Your Money Maker, as Chris explained the Black Crowes were “…from the deep south,” and “when we were younger people and we made this record, many moons ago— we knew we were a rock n roll band… we wanted to represent some parts of the music we grew up with, and the place we come from, and put some soul in the m***** f*****! And this is what we came up with– seeing things for the first time!”
The Otis Redding cover, and smash hit for the Crowes, “Hard to Handle” also spawned a lengthy introduction as Chris Robinson wanted to “…take a little second to give our praise and our thanks to the man who wrote this song,” continuing, “This is for y’all, and more importantly this is for the Big ‘O’!” It was also the only chance of the evening for the crowd to take over lead vocal duties. When the whole band stopped during the fourth recurrence of the famous chorus, Chris stood silent and held his microphone out to the crowd awaiting a resounding response. Those in attendance did not disappoint and burst into song, serenading the famous last two lines into the Milwaukee night air. A moment to remember for years to come.
The Black Crowes followed the Shake Your Money Maker set with nine numbers spanning across their diverse catalogue with six of the nine songs coming from their second and third albums. The only song that originated in the new century was the slide infused “Good Morning Captain,” which was humorously introduced by Chris Robinson sounding like an enthusiastic sailor aboard the HMS Victory. The Almond Brothers-esque “Thorn in My Side” was prefaced with band introductions which culminated nicely with the Robinson brothers introducing each other.
Two additional performances really stood out Sunday evening; each for its own reason. “She Talks to Angels” was the only other song besides “Hard to Handle” from the Shake Your Money Maker studio album to reach number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, while “Kicking My Heart Around” was a high-energy composition which elevated the crowd to dance their hearts out and was one of two tunes performed during the set featuring Chris Robinson on the harmonica. As can be expected, “Remedy” proved to be the climactic moment of the second half of the set with a cover of Velvet Underground’s “Rock & Roll” to follow as the encore and an interesting change of pace.
From Rich’s smiles at Chris’s on-stage antics, to Chris mock-punching and elbowing his brother when the band lined up for the final bow, after all these years there were more than a few moments where it was undeniable that the Robinson brothers were pleased to be sharing the stage again. As the rest of the band walked off, leaving the brothers alone for a brief moment, Chris and Rich Robinson smiled and walked off together, seemingly chatting about how great the Milwaukee performance was. For die-hard Crowes fans, or anyone with a brother, THAT moment proved to be the real highlight of the entire evening.
THE BAND:
Chris Robinson – Vocals
Rich Robinson – Guitar
Sven Pipien – Bass
Isaiah Mitchell – Guitar
Brian Griffin – Drums
Joel Robinow – Keyboard
Mackenzie Adams – Backing Vocals
Leslie Grant – Backing Vocals
SET LIST:
1. Twice as Hard
2. Jealous Again
3. Sister Luck
4. Could I’ve Been So Blind
5. Seeing Things
6. Hard to Handle
7. Thick N’ Thin
8. She Talks to Angels
9. Struttin’ Blues
10. Stare It Cold
11. No Speak No Slave
12. Kickin’ My Heart Around
13. Good Morning Captain
14. Descending
15. Wiser Time
16. Thorn in My Pride
17. Sting Me
18. Remedy
19. Rock & Roll
