By Chris Varias
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Attention all soft-rock stars. Report to Millett Hall immediately.

That's the place to play if you're a sensitive guy with a guitar or a piano. On November 13, upstart singer-songwriter John Mayer put on a show to the delight of screaming girls and their almost equally enthusiastic guy friends. One week later, it was Adam Duritz's turn, as his band Counting Crows played the Miami University arena to a crowd that grew more excited with each song and called for two encores.

Built on jangly folk-rock and Mr. Duritz's vague little vignettes about sadness, wanderlust and inclement weather, Counting Crows' 1993 album August and Everything After was out of step with the grunge-driven style popular at the time.

Counting Crows repeated the formula on the four albums that followed, including this year's release, Hard Candy. The band now has enough material to play a near-two hours of songs that all seem to be crowd favorites.

August songs like "Mr. Jones," "Round Here," "Raining in Baltimore" and "Rain King" have been the long-time foundation of a Counting Crows show and were especially well-received, but Hard Candy material such as "American Girls," the title track, "Holiday in Spain" and, for obvious reasons, "Miami" went over big, too.

So did a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," a Hard Candy hidden track. The band recently completed a video for the song, Mr. Duritz told the crowd.

The best song of the night was "Hanginaround," a good-time sing along. It seems as if Mr. Duritz, whose writing is prone to bad poetry and overwrought sentiments, didn't spend too much time on the simple tune, and it's all the better for it.

Opening act Uncle Kracker and his band joined Counting Crows on the song. Kracker rapped. It was bad, the kind of lame rap used in commercials to sell soda pop and salted snacks to kids.

Uncle Kracker's ill-fated return to the stage was in keeping with his opening set. The Kid Rock DJ-turned-solo artist used the same formula as his boss' - mixing comical and outrageous hip-hop with poppy hard-rock.

Maybe behind the scenes Uncle Kracker helped Kid Rock devise his winning formula. But he has none of Kid Rock's stage presence, charm or cockiness, and the performance was flat.

E-mail cvarias@enquirer.com