Like any band that could conceivably be called alternative in the '90s,
Counting Crows released a lot of multi-part singles loaded up with non-LP B-sides and had songs given away on compilations and soundtracks, but they truly jumped into that game after their 1994 debut,
August and Everything After. After recording that first album, they didn't have much left in the vault, so the singles contained live versions and acoustic versions of songs from the album. The only major non-LP song was "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)," originally released on the 1994 various-artists comp
DGC Rarities, Vol. 1, and since that was pulled for the 2003 hits collection
Films About Ghosts, there wasn't much reason to recycle it for this 2007 double-disc deluxe edition of
August. Without previously released songs to round up, the deluxe edition concentrates on previously unreleased tracks -- a whopping 19 of them. Most of these tracks are the 13 songs performed at the last show of the
August and Everything After tour, performed in Paris and captured here for posterity. It's a good show, but of greater interest to fans are the six previously unreleased demos, three of them acoustic, on the first disc, including a version of
Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." Nothing here is essential, but it's all good, and when combined with liner notes from
Adam Duritz, it makes for a nice package for dedicated fans. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine