POP MUSIC REVIEW : Black Crowes Show Potential to Soar

With a little less ambition, the Black Crowes--perhaps the hottest mainstream rock band since Guns N’ Roses--might still be back in Atlanta, playing Rolling Stones or Faces tunes in some hot bar.

With a bit more imagination, on the other hand, the quintet may emerge as one of the most important and appealing bands of the ‘90s--a band that refocuses attention on rock’s colorful blues roots.

Part of the lure of the group’s sold-out concert Saturday at the Greek Theatre (the first of two nights there) was seeing if the band, more than a year after its “Shake Your Money Maker” album entered the charts, has more fully defined its role, and future, in rock.

For the first hour of the quintet’s set, it was hard to find any traces of increased imagination. The Crowes that you got on stage were pretty much the same Crowes outlined by the album: music that is richly appealing, but far too locked into a familiar rock tradition.

In some ways in fact, it’s easy to think of “Shake” as a sequel even though the album--which has sold more than 2.5 million copies--is a debut.

That’s because the collection is every bit as much an echo of a successful formula as is a film like “Rocky II”--in this case, the blues-rock style developed in the ‘60s and ‘70s by such British groups as the Rolling Stones and the Faces.

Adding to the sense of the past at the Greek, lead singer Chris Robinson couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether his model as a performer was Rod Stewart or Mick Jagger.

Wearing a long scarf around his neck (once a trademark of both singers), Robinson twirled the microphone stand obsessively like Stewart and frequently pranced around the stage on his spider-thin legs in a way that was reminiscent of Jagger at his most show-biz.

Speaking of show biz, Robinson seems awfully proud of what he sees as the band’s role in keeping alive the flame of true rock ‘n’ roll.

Apparently referring to the band’s anti-corporate sponsorship stance that got the group thrown off the ZZ Top tour earlier this year, Robinson boasted about how the Crowes are a band that doesn’t kiss anyone’s behind.

Maybe he was just hamming it up for the radio audience (the concert was broadcast live nationally), but it was hamming just the same--and the near-constant patter was as inane as anything you’d hear from such rock recyclers as Poison, Cinderella or Bon Jovi.

Musically, however, whether you call the band’s appeal nostalgic or just a new generation’s embrace of one of rock’s richest and most enduring strains, the Crowes’ solid, blistering sound had the audience on its feet much of the night.

In such songs as “Jealous Again” and “Twice as Hard,” the Crowes combine universal themes of failed opportunities and regrets--staples of the blues--with a good sense of melodic hooks and convincing Southern musical character.

Yet there was no more sense of revelation in the music or the vocals than if the Crowes--augmented on this tour by a keyboardist--had spent their entire time on stage playing old blues-rock hits from the ‘60s.

But that changed dramatically during the first two numbers of the encore when the band did two things that suggest it may have sufficient musical instincts and craft to hold our attention in the future.

First, the decision to showcase “She Talks to Angels” to open the encore suggested the band may realize that the melancholy ballad is by far the group’s most compelling song. And then the group broke away from its stylistic straitjacket for a version of the Allman Brothers’ “Dreams” that was marvelously framed.

It’s always dangerous for a guitarist to venture into Allman Brothers territory because that earlier Georgia band’s music contained some of the finest guitar interpretations ever heard in rock. But Robinson’s brother Rich played the song with uncommon sensitivity and grace. If the Crowes can tap into that territory more often next time out, they may show the imagination equal to their ambition.