Issue date: 4/18/03 Section: The Verge

Counting Crows are what they are - a college bar and coffee house band that made it big.

After the seven-piece from the California Bay Area opened for Bob Dylan in the early '90s, they were far from unknown but they sure weren't hangin' with the Joneses yet.

Musicians and college students knew about them. Legendary guitarist of The Band, Robbie Robertson, emphatically introduced them to a larger audience when the Crows filled in for Van Morrison at the 1993 Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame ceremony.

Less than a year later, they were huge. From their debut full-length "August and Everything After" MTV and mainstream radio found a single. Although some might argue it's the only upbeat song on "August," "Mr. Jones" was the catalyst that brought the band to the masses and eventually to Eastern.

Counting Crows proved too musically diverse and persistent to allow themselves to slip quietly back to the coffee houses and small clubs the band had been performing at in 1992. Instead, "August" also produced another hit, "Round Here," and a number of other quality album cuts making the band a household name and frontman Adam Duritz a rising star. Of course appearances on Letterman and "Saturday Night Live" didn't hurt their cause.

The roots of the band go back to the Bay Area and, like many other bands, previous projects. Guitarist David Immergluck and bassist Matt Malley came from one band while keyboardist Charles Gillingham, guitarist Dan Vickery and the band's original drummer, Steve Bowman, came from another. Duritz is typically credited with forming Counting Crows in 1991 with David Bryson. Acoustic sets at coffee shops were the duo's forte prior to adding the rest of the original lineup.

Vickery said it was clear to him right after the band's first tour that Counting Crows could be the guys' profession.

"It was always a dream to be in a good band which I could fully concentrate," Vickery said. "On the same token though, there really isn't a lot of time for side projects."

While Duritz is the the band's vocal leader and primary lyricist, Vickery said he also is an accomplished musician and writes many of his songs on the piano. Many writers and critics have cited Dylan and Morrison as his lyrical influences, insight that isn't far off being that Duritz sang "I wanna be Bob Dylan" in "Mr. Jones."

With the band's current lineup featuring drummer Ben Mize, Vickery said the band is extremely comfortable on stage together and prefers to craft set lists that include the group's hits and favorite album cuts.

Continued...

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