Credit: Pam Bogert (note: this isn't actually from the show, but we liked how he is EMOTING)

When Music Towers got word of a ‘secret’ Counting Crows show taking place in New York City on March 16, we hastily looked to see if any of our NYC-based writers could make it. But they were all off getting drunk at SxSW. So step forward, Supermasterpiece.com’s Andrew Lin:

Now I'm not going to say you're an asshole for liking the Counting Crows. That first album is pretty good, and for all I know, so are the rest of them. But you are an asshole for liking a Counting Crows concert. I went to see their charmless live show 13 years ago, and it took the promise of cash to make me go see them Sunday night at the Blender Theater in New York. Little had changed except for the size of the venue. The Counting Crows audience has burned down to a core group of die-hards: a shitty sea of rapidly aging douchbaggery, willing to indulge their MOR 'Rain King' like no mentally underdeveloped crowd of Mid '90s alternateens ever could. But maybe you can put up with them. And audience aside, ‘Perfect Blue Buildings’ is a solid song. Why not go hear it concert? Unfortunately if you go to a Counting Crows show, you're going to have to listen to your favorite Counting Crows song performed…by the Counting Crows.

Here's how one of their songs typically goes down live. First, lead singer Adam Duritz sits down on his monitor, and stares either mournfully at the ground or up towards the ceiling with a laughing shrug, as if to say, "This crazy life of mine, am I right? Eh?" Then he launches into a rambling story about how and why he wrote the song he's about the sing. Maybe the keyboard player plunks out a few wistful notes underneath to lend the deep thoughts of Duritz the appropriate weight. Keyboard player has been through this before; he knows the drill. You've probably been through this before too, so you go to the bathroom.

Five minutes later you're back, refreshed and ready to go, and Duritz is still fucking talking, only now he's lost his train of thought. You know this because he keeps saying "I've lost my train of thought." More laughing, more shrugging. He's talking about some epiphany he had when he saw the moonlight dance and sparkle through the leaves in Washington Square, and he realized that he's just a balloon, and people let go of balloons, and balloons just drift away. Duritz likes the balloon metaphor. This is the third time he's brought it up.