By Bob Gendron
Special to the Tribune
Published January 30, 2006
Maybe Sheryl Crow was getting a head start on her
wedding preparations. Or perhaps she just forgot that her predominantly
middle-age fans still like to occasionally rock out on weekends.
Whatever the motive, Saturday evening at the Auditorium Theatre, Crow
gussied up her music with grandiose arrangements by the 12-piece David
Campbell String Section. The singer even came dressed for the part,
wearing a white gown and four-inch heels, formal attire that left her
as stiff as the bulk of her two-hour set.
While some pop artists have successfully integrated chamber elements
into their repertoire, there are many reasons why rock and classical
remain strange bedfellows. Unfortunately for Crow, the list went beyond
how ridiculous her string section looked while awkwardly tapping
percussive blocks. The 43-year-old required six songs before she found
the proper vocal balance, a learning curve that saw her both drowned
out by excessive heft and forced to compensatewith shrill histrionics.
Granted, nothing was technically amiss with Crow's pipes or affable
demeanor. She held onto notes for an eternity and conveyed a rootsy
accent. Few vocalists have the lung power to cut through 16
instruments, and Crow isn't one of them, particularly when her breezy
blues-etched sound regularly gave way to politesse. That the guitars
took a back seat to the strings in the mix didn't help matters. Nor did
the decision to front-load the concert with listless adult-contemporary
fare and soap-opera dramatics, or later, temper uptempo momentum with
formulaic power ballads that jockeyed for position in the next "Lion
King" sequel.
Not all was lost. "The Difficult Kind" unfolded
with smoldering tension, the orchestration careful not to intrude on
Peter Stroud's slide-guitar licks. The smartly grooved "My Favorite
Mistake" gave the filled house a long-awaited excuse to clap along,
while a cover of Cat Stevens' "The First Cut Is the Deepest" registered
emotional tremors that mellow slurry such as "Chances Are" tried to
force. And after an hour had passed, Crow's backing quartet finally
exacted revenge by cranking the crunch on "If It Makes You Happy," a
wake-up call whose dirt-road rhythms transitioned into a blaring
reading of "It Don't Hurt." But inexplicably, strings kept trespassing
where they weren't welcome or needed, whether in brisk shuffles ("Live
It Up") or barstool country ("Strong Enough").
For the encore,
Crow reappeared in tight jeans and a strapless, form-fitting top.
Unshackled from the suffocating accompaniment, group and audience
members enthusiastically bounced to the carefree hooks and practical
advice of "Soak Up the Sun."
Yet the moment was too brief.
Crow's reappearance as a down-to-earth gal rang hollow, and only showed
how removed she's apparently become from the common folk about whom she
once wrote.
Yes, she still sang about Billy and the bar and the
car wash. But where in the past those subjects seemed real, on this
night they were just names and places that, along with those of Elvis,
Cobain and Lennon, she randomly dropped into songs for appearance's
sake.
