Maroon 5 and Counting Crows at Jones Beach

Sometimes it's easy to forget that Adam Levine, with his unmistakable ego and sexual prowess (whether feigned or real), has such a high speaking voice- that is, until he squeaks "Hello, NEW YORK" to thousands of screaming Long Islanders. Sure, he churns out hits with high notes that Mickey Mouse might have trouble hitting, but isn't this the same testosterone-pumped Narcissus that told Maria Sharipova "game, set, match" because in bed she laid there "like a dead frog"? As he so delicately croons in "The Sun," you cannot help but "hate to love and love to hate" him.

Levine is a study in contrasts, not unlike his band. Maroon 5 recently released what is essentially a pop/dance album (It Won't Be Soon Before Long), and yet in concert, like a gravitational force, their fingers found the strings of their guitars in each song, ending with a blissful crescendo of shredding. At Jones Beach on Friday, they confused and delighted me at every turn. Delight because they were better than I had even dreamed. Confusion because I wondered why these versions weren't the ones on the album. I would have bought it.

The variations they made to their songs were generally welcome upgrades or refreshing ways to present the classics. The same cannot be said for the Counting Crows, who had taken the stage before them. I was sometimes more excited about seeing CC than M5 in the days leading up to the concert. CC were unfortunately one of the worst performances I have ever paid that kind of money for. That is not to say that they were bad, but if Adam Duritz wants to speak all the lyrics like prose at a cafe's open mic night, then I should be sipping a latte with a heftier wallet, and giving him snaps rather than falling asleep.

Or perhaps HE was the sleepy one. Duritz was constantly at risk of losing his balance, teetering on one foot atop a monitor, he himself seeming like a crow on a telephone wire. I couldn't tell if the Drunken Master routine was an act or an actuality.

While Maroon 5 showed love to the fans by playing all of their most-beloved numbers, (except, sadly, my favorite: "Secret"), Counting Crows snubbed them by playing self-gratifying songs that people talked over, and neglecting to play 2 of their biggest hits ("Round Here" and "Mr. Jones"). We could have used less of them and more of Sara Bareilles, whose voice sounded spectacular, but whose set was far too short for us to really get to know her. She started very early too, so many people, including us, only got to catch a couple of her songs.She was the only one without the mouth of a sailor that night. "S**t" streamed out of Duritz's dreded head, despite the throngs of teeny-boppers looking on (wasn't their song in "Shrek"??). And the F-Bomb was the curse of choice for Levine, even though his mother was somewhere in the crowd, which he announced, followed by the half-apology/half-mockery: "Hi mom, sorry about saying 'F**k'."

A word about Jones Beach: no matter what concert, about a third of the parking lot is taken up by tailgate parties. I'm not sure how Maroon 5 and tailgating go together, but I'm sure some people think that everything goes with tailgating. Hey, why not? Just don't take up an extra parking spot just for your kegs and fold-up lawn chairs and yell at me when I try to park there.

Oh, and as a side note, don't buy the VIP parking passes. As far as I can tell, they are a waste of money. We haven't bought them, or needed them, once.

By the end of their respective sets, both bands had become predictable again in my mind, but I had put them in a new box. Maroon 5 played two encore songs, the first being a beautiful rendition of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Games" (one of my all-time favorite songs) that flowed perfectly into "She Will Be Loved," which uses a similar chord progression. Then, like clockwork, they brought down the house with yet another rock 'n' roll ending on "Harder to Breathe." The band was tighter than my boyfriend (who had seen them 7 times and loved them long before they were big), had ever seen them before. They had become professional showmen. And Counting Crows predictably ended with the Drunken Master finally collapsing on the floor... and swearing.