Review & setlist: Counting Crows are older, tighter, and as engaging as ever at MGM

Concert Reviews

The band that first rose to prominence in the early ’90s still had their stuff when they hit Boston Thursday night.

Counting Crows, with The Gaslight Anthem, MGM Music Hall at Fenway, June 26, 2025.

At MGM Music Hall Thursday night, Counting Crows did something pretty brilliant when they rolled out “Mr. Jones,” the breakthrough single that helped propel the band’s debut album, “August and Everything After,” to 7x Platinum status back in 1993. 

Well, a few brilliant things, actually: First, they played it early (third song in the set!) rather in the encore slot you might have expected. But also, frontman Adam Duritz’s take on it — a spoken-sung approach, sometimes from a seated position on the stage, with the iconic “Mr. Jones and me” of the chorus left to the audience to sing — gave the song an effectively world-weary vibe. 

Rather than having something to prove, like the song’s narrator did back in ’93, the current model seemed to have nothing left to lose — which felt utterly appropriate for a band now in its fourth decade. And if that sounds like a downer, trust me, it wasn’t: With Duritz’s emotional rasp fully intact and his band firing on all cylinders, their efforts to make decades-old tracks sound lived-in, and lived-through, only added to what was ultimately a thrilling ride through a long and compelling catalog.

The old songs were only half the formula, though. The two-hour show wouldn’t have packed nearly the punch it did without a solid new release as its backbone, and “Butter Miracle” more than fits the bill. (The second half of the album was actually released as an EP back in 2021, with the whole shebang, a.k.a. “The Complete Sweets,” getting a full release this past May.) Far from just a retread, the album takes full advantage of the band’s strengths, from Duritz’s quirky lyrical charm and wounded delivery to the band’s effortlessly intricate delivery of his rollicking folk-rock melodies.

That was clear right from the start with “Spaceman in Tulsa,” with its bouncy assertion that “I’m a motherf—ing rock and roll star” — a winking declaration that fits right in with the theme of fame’s complicated nature, something Duritz has been grappling with since “Mr. Jones.” But no worries if grappling is not your thing — the beauty of these songs, with their anthemic rock ‘n’ roll beats and charmingly integrated backing vocals, is that they pull you along viscerally whether the lyrics are registering or not. (Better for you if you listen, though.)

This was even truer of “With Love, from A-Z,” the instant Crows classic that opens the new album and was an absolute mid-set highlight on Thursday. “What you see is just pieces of me,” Duritz sings (there’s that complicated relationship with fame again), progressing through a massive buildup to a cathartic delivery. The last song he wrote for “Butter Miracle,” he told the crowd that when he finished it, “I knew we had a record.” Hearing its magnetic presentation Thursday night, you could see why.

Meanwhile Duritz, working all sides of the stage, conducting the lighting cues, and clearly still tickled by his band’s playful asides and utter professionalism, remains an excellent ringmaster 30+ years on. Always something of a tortured soul — he’s talked publicly about his struggles with a dissociative disorder — he still comes across as someone who desperately wants to connect but isn’t sure he can, which actually works perfectly with his anguished vocal timbre. 

That’s not to say he’s not also funny and engaging. “What’s up Massholes?” he greeted the crowd a few songs in, clarifying that “We’re all Massholes tonight” for anyone possibly offended. And his playful rant against cellphones after a woman in the front row tried to get him to take a picture with hers was dead-on, in a “get off my lawn” kind of way. (Like the rest of us, Adam has gotten a lot older since “August and Everything After,” although unlike those of us down front, at least he gets to sit every so often. Should a seatless pit really be allowed at shows for bands that first charted way back in the 1900s? Asking for a friend.)

The older Duritz (who spoke of living in Watertown as a child while his father did his residency at Mass. General) also seems to have worked out some of the tics of his early career, when he seemed to enjoy extending songs out just because he could. The versions Thursday night were tight and the phrases he accentuated always seemed to resonate, whether at the end of a haunting “Omaha” (“I’m coming hooooome today”) or during a driving version of “Round Here.” (“Round here we stay up VERY, VERY LATE,” Duritz howled from atop an amp, and for those of us who were out on a work night, we could relate.)

After a brief slower interlude that proved hauntingly beautiful but that even Duritz seemed to admit was harshing the vibe a bit — a sad “Colorblind” from “This Desert Life,” along with the equally melancholy acoustic versions of “Washington Square,” featuring Charlie Gillingham’s excellent accordion and some cool jangly percussion from Jim Bogios, and the Teenage Fanclub track “Start Again,” with Duritz on keys — the Crows shifted into another plane to end the main set. “Round Here” gave way to the new rocker “Boxcars,” a stinging indictment of shiny distractions in a crumbling world, followed by a simply spectacular “A Long December” (starting off with a brief take on Taylor Swift’s “the 1”) that seemed to resonate with shared longing from first note to last. 

A stunningly lit “Rain King” drove the crowd wild to close the set, and was a terrific reminder of how, at the height of the grunge era, the Crows showed us it’s OK to feel things and get lost in catchy melodies at the same time.

The encore was gravy at that point — the new “Under the Aurora” made great use of the band’s bouncy backing vocals, and the loopy “Hanginaround” is always a pleasure — but it was probably appropriate that they ended with the desolate yearning of “Holiday in Spain.” No one does desolate yearning like the Counting Crows.

The Gaslight Anthem — the punk-by-way-of-’70s-classic-rock band from New Jersey — has provided some of the most evocative lyrics of the 21st century via frontman Brian Fallon, and were the perfect complement as the Crows’ opener. (Duritz clearly loves them, singing their praises during the Crows’ set and even lyrically referencing their song “High Lonesome” during “Round Here.”)

The band’s breakout song “The ’59 Sound,” from 2008, has lost none of its chilling verve, but was far from the only highlight of a stinging hour-long set: “Handwritten,” “Mulholland Drive,” closing barn-burner “45,” and the Tom Petty cover “Honeybee” all proved that Gaslight Anthem has plenty left in the tank. 

Setlist for Counting Crows at MGM Music Hall, June 26, 2025:

• Spaceman in Tulsa
• Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby
• Mr. Jones
• Virginia Through the Rain
• Omaha
• Richard Manuel Is Dead
• With Love, From A‐Z
• Miami
• Colorblind
• Washington Square
• Start Again (Teenage Fanclub cover)
• Round Here
• Boxcars
• the 1 (Taylor Swift cover)/A Long December
• Rain King

Encore:

• Under the Aurora
• Hanginaround
• Holiday in Spain

Peter Chianca

General Assignment Editor

Peter Chianca, Boston.com’s general assignment editor since 2019, is a longtime news editor, columnist, and music writer in the Greater Boston area.