The pairing makes total sense from a marketing standpoint: Mom and Dad can catch the Counting Crows, while Maroon 5 can deliver safe, slick rock 'n' roll for the teenagers to enjoy.
But the similarities in substance between the two groups are few, if any. And Tuesday night at Hersheypark Stadium, the match-up wasn't even a fair one.
Following a brief set from up-and-coming singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles — sounding refreshingly like a sunnier Norah Jones who doesn't seem afraid of her own shadow —Maroon 5 stormed through over an hour of slick, soul-kissed pop hits.
Singer Adam Levine proved he is more of a sex symbol than a bandleader.
While his clear voice and confident stage demeanor make him a god to teens and young adults, not to mention provide fodder for his side job as a guaranteed tabloid teaser, he is little more than a boy band singer with an actual band behind him.
Not a bad band, mind you. Maroon 5 can lock in a tight soul groove and stay there. It's just that hit after hit — "This Love," "Harder to Breathe," "Sunday Morning," "All I Need" — anyone with open ears over 30 wonders where they have heard these tunes before. Prince? Terrance Trent D'Arby? Morris Day? Maybe Jamiraqui?
With two albums in less than seven years, it's not likely a pop act can pull off a show that is anything more than adequately slick, no matter how many 13-to-21-year-old girls sing along.
With a set of pipes like his and a monster hit-maker like Clive Davis behind him, there is no doubt Levine will have every chance to prove these assertions wrong.
But there is a difference between simply a good band and a well-rehearsed one. And within minutes of Counting Crows' taking the stage shortly before 10 p.m. to the buttery tones of Bill Withers' "Lean on Me," the difference was clear.
"We're going to do something a little different tonight," is how a now noticeably svelte singer Adam Duritz introduced the band's performance. As he explained, it was the band's way of making sure they always play from the heart, instead of a setlist.
"It's a hard thing being a Counting Crows fan," he joked. "I read the boards, so I know."
"I know you want us to sing the songs the way you want me to so you can sing along with them," he said, alluding to his frequent habit of not ever sticking to the same phrasing of each song as it was recorded.
On a good night, it can make a familiar song ring with new kinetic energy. On a bad night, it sounds like he's doing a bad Van Morrison impression.
"But if we played the same show every night, you'd be getting ripped off," he explained.
It was an approach more appropriate for a small club or theater, but brandishing more acoustic guitars than electric, the band made it work, with most of the audience on its feet the entire show.
What could have become a stadium-sized snooze became immediately memorable, and dare it be said, intimate.
Starting with their breakout hit "Rain King," recast in a slower country-rock delivery with lyrics from "Someone to Watch Over Me" the band played almost entirely re-imagined versions of its classics.
Of the groups older material only the soaring piano/accordion ballad "Long December" and the touching "If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel is Dead)" were played close to their original forms.
"Angels of the Silences," which opened the band's second album in 1996 with crushing guitars and belted vocals, was played gentle and slower than its original, followed by the rare country tune "Four White Stallions," complete with pedal steel.
"Mr. Jones," the band's first hit single from 1994, was virtually unrecognizable to fans until well into the first verse.
Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" may have proven a hit for Counting Crows in 2002 but fans criticized its stiff, cheesy pop feel. Here the band atoned for that sin with a version entirely new — keeping the heavy beats of their hit version and referencing Mitchell's folksy original with harmonica and mandolin.
Only one song, "Washington Square," was played from the group's new disc "Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings."
A band that can reinvent its catalog on a whim and still connect with its core audience is a talent to be applauded.
Why it needs to share the stage with a derivative Top 40 band to do that is unclear.
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