The Nuthouse

Last night I covered the Black Crowes at the Cotillion. It was the third concert I’ve covered for The Eagle, along with Kid Rock (I like him) and Merle Haggard. For the first two concerts, I wrote generally positive reviews. I’m no expert on either artist, but they showed up, played good sets and most of the fans seemed to be enjoying themselves. So it worked for me.

I’m not saying the Black Crowes didn’t play a good set. And I’ll be the first to admit that apparently I missed out on the Black Crowes somehow. I remember them from the early 1990s, when they debuted and had a lot of really good songs right out of the chute. Between then and now, however, where have they been?

I’m not asking that to be mean. Really, where have they been? I know they’ve been putting out records, but how and why did they fall out of the mainstream so quickly? I’m no music aficionado, but I don’t remember hearing much from them in the last 10 or so years except for that lead singer Chris Robinson and Kate Hudson got married, had a child, then divorced.

The concert last night wasn’t bad. And maybe if it was in front of 10,000 people the Crowes would have played their hits. I guess maybe they figured that if only 2,000 or so people were there, they all had to be die-hard fans and would love anything they played. And for those die-hard fans, I hope you had a great time. Really, I do. But I wanted to hear “Hard To Handle,” “Jealous Again” and “She Talks To Angels.” All great songs.

My online review for the Eagle was not well-received at all. I got blasted. A lot. That’s fine. I guess that’s why I only cover concerts and don’t (officially) blog about them. But if you think I’m not going to do my best to cover Poison at the fair next month, you’re crazy. I love hair bands. But, at least for blogging purposes only, from here on out I’ll stick to baseball.

I guess I know I’ve run out of Mike Hargrove material when his Liberal Bee Jays have been eliminated from the National Baseball Congress World Series, and that happened last night with a loss to Beatrice. No offense to Beatrice, which has a long history in the tournament and not much success, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I would have loved to see Liberal play Santa Barbara in the championship.

Instead, we’ll get Santa Barbara against either Beatrice or Seattle, two teams that play in tonight’s 7 p.m. semifinal at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. Neither would be the marquee matchup that Liberal vs. Santa Barbara would provide, but I think I’ll pick Beatrice for reasons people who have inhabited the press box for the last two weeks will understand but I can’t discuss here. S-Barb is clearly in the drivers seat as the only undefeated team and will need to be beaten twice to lose the championship.

I decided that I am ready for the Wingnuts to be back. I miss them, and I am looking forward to talking with the players and manager Kash Beauchamp again, to see how agonizing the 16 days they spent on the road were. Probably not as agonizing as they were for the NBC crew, which often had to be at Lawrence-Dumont for all hours of the day and night. Including me — I walked out of that place at 4:45 a.m. a few nights ago. So I’m sure the return of the Wingnuts is a relief for a lot of people. It’s still work, but it’s easier.

And did you see USA baseball beat the Netherlands last night or this morning or whenever, Chinese time? My boy LaPorta hit a bomb. I’ll say it again — Go USA!