Chris Robinson Pleas for Quiet at Black Crowes Acoustic Concert
Chris Robinson gave voice to the complaints of countless concertgoers when he took a chatty audience to task during a Black Crowes acoustic concert in Philadelphia's Foundry at the Fillmore.
"It would be nice if we could hear ourselves," Robinson said before he and his brother Rich Robinson launched into "Wiser Time" on Friday night. "So, if you could just shut the fuck up a little bit. … But that's cool, because it's like, 'What are we here - every fucking week doing this shit?'"
Chris and Rich Robinson are appearing together as a duo in a series of intimate preview shows before the Black Crowes begin a larger reunion tour. They opened the Philadelphia date with "Jealous Again" and "Twice as Hard," before Robinson halted things to point out how distracting the crowd noise had become.
"We're not gonna be up here for that long, so if you could show us a little respect," Chris noted. "It's a waste of our time to have to stop to ask other people to be polite while we're performing."
You can see video of the incident below.
Unfortunately, his initial plea for quiet went unheeded. Robinson was forced to stop again before performing "Oh Josephine" later in the set.
"We can't get into it when all I can hear is conversations. ... You're fucking grown adults and you paid your money, you should pay attention. It's one guy with a guitar," Robinson said, pointing to his brother, "and me singing. Again, the vibes are so good and everybody's happy, but we have to stop because we can't hear ourselves. Seriously, man, get it fucking together or we can play 'She Talks to Angels' and fuck off if you want – which would be very punk rock to do that, by the way."'
The set list from this mini-tour, which the Robinsons have dubbed Brothers of a Feather, has also included "Thorn in My Pride," "Nonfiction," a dedication of "Descending" to late Black Crowes keyboardist Ed Harsch and an encore cover of Ry Cooder's "Boomer's Story."