Across A Wire: Live In New York City

Excellent two CD LIVE set in a double digipac. Discs are loose as tabs on trays are broken - Art graded just FAIR. Light scuffs on discs will not affect play.

Too much too soon is the m.o. of so many bands who, thanks to the fleeting fame that accompanies music-video breakthroughs, are famous before their time and has-beens five minutes later. You could be excused for thinking that's the case with Counting Crows, darlings of both MTV and VH1, who here release a double concert CD after only two studio albums. But you'd be wrong. The set, an acoustic disc recorded for VH1's Storytellers and an electric one from MTV's Live from the 10 Spot, proves how well the oft-bootlegged Crows have earned their reputation as a smoking live band. It also shows how elastic their rambling and evocative songs can be, some of which appear on both discs but in vastly different arrangements. People may tire of vocalist Adam Duritz's perpetually-wounded-soldier-of-love act, but this is one band whose success was hard-won and is richly deserved. --Daniel Durchholz