- The Black Crowes and the Full Moon Flower Band rolled into Brisneyland (Brisbane / Meanjin) on 16th November, 2022. Playing to a sold out crowd at The Fortitude Music Hall, they never missed a beat.
The Full Moon Flower Band was a great warm up / opener. Then brothers Chris and Rich Robinson and the band strolled on to the stage like it was a lounge club and got down to business, totally owning the place like they had been here a million times.
The stated purpose of the tour was to play the Shake Your Money Maker album in its entirety and “all the hits”. It was way more than that.
They opened with Twice As Hard then Jealous Again and with third song Sister Luck up next they were fully hitting their straps.
Lead singer Chris Robinson has always been on the skinny side and in his magic shimmering blue lounge lizard's suit, tonight, he did not seem as if he has put on a kilo in thirty years. If you know The Allman Brothers (back when Duane Allman was head honcho) and Lynryd Skynyrd ( both amazing bands from the deep south of USA) then the Black Crowes are already good friends of yours. If not then please check out their back-catalogues.
Both guitarists had at least ten different changes of instrument. Mainly playing gibson Les Paul electrics they also played some Fender Stratocasters and a few different Gretchen and Gibson semi-acoustics. There were also some custom-built acoustics.
The crowd knew the hits, quickly connecting with the band and it was like a friendly old steam train from the deep south of the USA (The Black Crowes hail from Atlanta, Georgia) taking us all on a ride with southern-fried rock and roll as our live soundtrack. The band has sold tens of millions of records and on this thirtieth anniversary tour seemed as fresh as when they first hit the stage.
Hard To Handle (the Otis Redding cover – or as Chris Robinson called him “the big O”) , Jealous Again , She Talks To Angels and Remedy were the four biggest tracks of the show. The band played for over two hours and had a stage full of amps (mostly Voxs and Marshalls) – which- yes they were all plugged in and used. After walking off a few times their final encore was Rocks Off - Stones cover.
It was like a window to the deep south had opened for a few hours. The band were so tight they could stop on a five-cent piece. They promised to “be back soon”. A little bird told me that when the band played again on Thursday 17th November at the same venue it was like they were uplifted one-hundred-per-cent and lifted the roof off The Fortitude Music Hall (magic what a day of relaxation by the hotel pool can do for you).
Black Crowes - please come back soon and lift the roof still higher.
- Donald Gunn.