Live Review: Counting Crows, Ben Salter

Ben Salter walked onto the stage so discreetly, a lone man under the spotlight in a dark suit and a mass of floppy, frizzy locks (“poodle hair” he said it’s been called), he had to ask Sydney for a welcoming round of applause.

Certainly not the chirpiest set, something Salter admitted, but the talented Brisbane songwriter, armed with an acoustic guitar, loop/effects pedal and a tambourine, filled the theatre with listenable singer/songwriter fare, with harmonic complexities and auto-voice harmony mixed in for good measure. Is he tuning? Is he recording a loop? Is there a backing singer hiding in the dark? Plugging his album, The Stars My Destination, he seemed to be successfully warming up the crowd nicely, and sweetly carried his own equipment off the stage.

And as if a knowing prequel, the curls evolved into dreadlocks, and a recording of Lean On Me set the mood as the lights went down and the obviously tight group of friends that are Counting Crows took their places behind an impressive array of instruments. Frontman Adam Duritz’s unmistakable voice put the crowd immediately at ease. It’s warm, it’s soulful, but not in a traditional sense. And though you could tell you were in the company of decades of experience just by looking at the band surrounding him, Duritz’s boyish mannerisms and contentment with performing – alongside his size and not necessarily happy lyrics – had the grand theatre filled and moving. The group were as tight as a family, following their leader’s every move, his gesticulations sometimes painting us a story, sometimes conducting the group, occasionally just hands in pockets like a lost boy singing his heart out. Sometimes he would just sit on the platform or amp, engaged, but simply fine with enjoying a break as his friends soloed.

The almost two-hour set featured many songs from the recent album, Somewhere Under Wonderland, interspersed with some oldies and goodies, Omaha, A Long December and A Murder Of One among them. The set saw musicians transition between instruments: bassist on piano, guitarist rocking it out on mandolin, the pianist on accordion – all wonderful. The songs that stuck with you perhaps, if you didn’t know them all, were the few Duritz prefaced with some words of explanation. God Of Ocean Tides, the first song they wrote for the 2014 album; Start Again, where he told us that he loves this song, they play it everyday and, poignantly, that “it’s just fun to stand on stage and sing in harmony with your friends.” We missed some serious classics (alas, no Mr Jones), but were treated to a three-song encore of Palisades Park, Rain King and the harmonic Holiday In Spain.

It was community on stage, as Duritz finally introduced the band, each as “his friend” so-and-so. It was nostalgia without the shabby “embarrassing” tag. It was still original. The set closed with Duritz remarking on how he enjoyed the long gigs and encouraged us to sing along with him as a recording of California Dreamin’ ushered us out, smiling if not also wanting more, into the brisk evening air.