The enduring popularity of Counting Crows can arguably feel like an exercise in statistical analysis given the band’s ability maintain their chosen formula of down home “roots pop” rock – and rabid fanbase – in a trendy landscape that is not terribly kind to their kind of poetically introspective earnestness and Americana-boho if it doesn’t come from Wilco.

However, after surveying the crowd at last night’s semi-secret Crows gig at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, and taking the temperature for the Berkeley band on various tastemaker music blogs, it’s clear that it isn’t about the hotness or hauteness factor of the band (or singer/lyricist Adam Duritz’ improbable sex appeal) at all. It really just comes down to the music, or “choons” as Bono says, and an indelibly gorgeous album that even indie nerds (and hipsters) hold dear: 1993’s August and Everything After.

The Crows alighted the stage to the chorus of crowd sing-along favorite (and it was) “Lean on Me,” and got promptly down to business with a delicate, wrenching rendition of “Colorblind,” a ballad from 1999’s This Desert Life, or more famously from the fantastic teen drama fest, Cruel Intentions. Suffice it to say (and how lazy it is for me to do so), but there are only so many ways to describe “thunderous applause” or “manic appreciation” and that’s clearly what the capacity crowd was feeling last night.

Next was a double shot from 1996’s Recovering the Satellites, with “Have You Seen Me Lately” and the album’s eponymous tune. The faithful crowd knows every word, the man in the “World’s Greatest DAD” shirt in front of me is having a grand time, and someone is smoking pot. Neither of these things is surprising, nor is the tightness of the band as its accompaniment swirls behind Duritz’s plaintive, sweetly expressive vocals of croons, yelps and yawps. I decide that it’s all gravy because the Crows are just as fun and down for a Sunday night jam as I am.

“Rain King” ascended to heights I hadn’t imagined (I was indeed a first-timer to a Crows gig), and rendered me delighted when the jovial and hilarious Duritz mentioned that the slowed-down gem was “a song about how fucking deep I am.” Singing loudly to, “Don’t try to feed me, I’ve been here before and I deserve a little more” brought me back to the summer of 1994, driving aimlessly through a small town in rural North Carolina with nowhere and nothing to be but young, with the windows rolled down, screeching “I belong in the service of the Queen! I belong anywhere but in-between!” to annoyed pensioners and their grandkids.

Ditto for “Anna Begins,” another August and Everything After tune that has reduced many to tears, especially the dudes, for its naked take on love, and not being “ready for this sort of thing.” All was delivered perfectly, and with Duritz banging his head with his fist, singing these lines for the millionth time, emoting as if it were the first, or as if whomever Anna might be in his lifetime, is still a fresh wound. Maybe she is. Maybe it doesn’t matter when a story as universal as the uncertainty of giving in to love is involved. Maybe it’s everyone’s story. But isn’t that universal appeal why August is so brilliant? The horribly underrated storytelling ability of Duritz, who could gives Conor Oberst a run for his money any day; only, without the pomp and hesitance.

A fantastic “Hard Candy” followed, with an extended story break from Duritz for the next song, “Miami.” It’s a story about a girlfriend who is due to land at the airport any minute now. They haven’t seen each other in awhile. Panic sets in as Duritz watches the “sun go down over the ocean.” He wants to see her, but moreso wants to leave because he knows it was going to be “over” anyway. He says, “this song is about mixed feelings, about Amelia, about me,” and then whips out a tour-de-force performance that hangs on his emotional vocals. You can see why he has romanced some of the world’s most desirable women. (Look them up.)

“Round Here” brings the house down, and I fight back tears singing “Round Here, something radiates,” again remembering what it feels like to live in Nowheresville, and the taste of desperation, of aimless youth and the choices we make for ourselves when no one’s watching. Of lines we merely cross, or wholeheartedly jump over. And Duritz, with his Basquiat hair, Bard of Berkeley flair, unhinged performance and sloppy agility, he lords over it all, over the crowd, over the girls and youth immortalized in song.

A stunning mash-up of “Raining in Baltimore” and “A Long December” will be hard to beat, set to delicate piano and accordion, a respectful, swaying crowd and plenty of “Na na na’s” to go around, the sense of renewal and maudlin that “December” carries with it, and the “phone call,” the saving grace of “Baltimore’s” lone phone call, “but everything else is the same.”

The rousing encore (that became a lengthy album preview) began with a new/old tune, “1492,” originally meant for Hard Candy, but now a hit single on March 25’s release, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings. It’s a drinking song, but aren’t they all, the exploration of sin and regret. And that’s the magical thing about Counting Crows – honesty isn’t passé yet.

–Carrie Alison, Photos by Carrie Alison