Counting Crows sang about “Mr. Jones,” received an Academy Award nomination and has a new album that is the No. 1 seller on iTunes. Now the band is making a stop on its international tour at Chicago’s Riviera Theatre April 10 to play at the A&O Ball.
Counting Crows will perform with Wild Sweet Orange in a closed show for Northwestern students. Tickets for the show will go on sale Thursday, April 3 at 10:30 a.m. and cost $15. Each student can purchase two tickets with one WildCARD.
The A&O Ball has been bringing musical acts to NU students for about 30 years, but budgeting issues prevented its show from being held at the Riviera Theatre the last two years, A&O Productions Chairman Alex White said.
Having the show at the Riviera will give more students the opportunity to see a concert that may have been sold out more quickly in a campus venue, he said. The Riviera can hold up to 2,500 people.
“We’re really thrilled for Counting Crows,” White said. “They’re famous for their high-energy live shows, and it’s a band that’s been around for many years. We’ve all grown up listening to them.”
In a year of popular sold-out shows, including Girl Talk, B.J. Novak and Flight of the Conchords, Counting Crows will be the best-known act to perform for NU students since Kanye West in A&O’s 2005 fall concert, White said.
Counting Crows has been a coveted act for the past several years and was A&O’s first choice of bands for this year’s ball, he said.
“(Counting Crows) are of a caliber that we’re not normally able to afford,” said McCormick junior Dave Lowe, a member of A&O’s concert committee. “This year, the planets aligned so that we could make the financing and scheduling line up.”
A&O has tried to bring Counting Crows to campus for several years, Lowe said. In 2005, then-A&O Chairman Peter Kahn told The Daily that Counting Crows placed first in a student survey on potential concert performers, but the group was too expensive for A&O’s budget.
But A&O was able to bypass former obstacles to book Counting Crows this spring.
“The money that we’re normally allocated isn’t enough to cover a show like the Crows, but because we negotiated such a good deal with OK Go, we negotiated with the (ASG) Senate finance board to use some of those funds,” White said. “We’re paying at the bottom of their range because they’re on a tour, and it routes perfectly.”
A&O made an initial offer to the band in January and entered into negotiations about the date, price and venue. They received informal confirmation about the second week of February but could not officially announce the concert until they received contracts with signatures from both the university administration and the band, White said.
Once A&O confirmed the show, the group started a promotional campaign to spread the word around campus, White said.
A&O members ran a video during one of the blocks at Dance Marathon that made several references to Counting Crows’ songs, said Weinberg senior Gabe Rich, the DM dancer relations co-chairman.
“I think that was kind of a cool surprise,” Rich said. “If you were familiar with the band, you at least had a guess.”
The size of DM this year made it a good venue for A&O to get the word out, he said.
“What stood out to me was when a guy came out with a sheet of paper taped to his shirt that said ‘Mr. Jones,’ ” said DM dancer and Medill freshman Ward Goolsby. ” ‘Mr. Jones’ is my favorite Counting Crows song.”
A&O plans to further publicize the show, but doesn’t anticipate a lack of student interest.
“The ticket scramble is going to be pretty intense,” Lowe said.
