OTTAWA - The Black Crowes are like a breath of fresh air -- as long as you take their weed-puffing fans out of the equation -- in today's tightly scripted, pre-packaged music industry.

The six Southern rockers, with two powerful female backup singers, strode on stage in Ottawa last night without even the mildest amount of the beat-pounding hype favoured by most of their contemporaries.

The long-haired, laid-back group is most often compared with the Rolling Stones, but standing at the Ottawa Congress Centre amid 2,200 appreciative fans, I couldn't help but like these guys a whole lot more.

It would have all been so perfect, were we reclined on a sloping lawn under a beating sun.

Lead singer Chris Robinson, famously married to Hollywood actress Kate Hudson but possessing of a searing set of rocky pipes that recalls Joe Cocker, Greg Allman, Robert Plant and any other of the raspy greats, even nodded to the not-so-perfect setting with the moveable walls.

"Welcome to the Monday night try-to-turn-the-bunker-into-a-garden," he said to cheers.

Robinson and the rest of the long-haired band -- who offered up kick-ass four-part harmonies on most tunes, richly layered on top of ripping guitar and psychedelic keys -- are blessedly free of the distressed jeans and leather look, with some carefully manicured stubble thrown in, so favoured by today's biggest acts.

The crew opened with a rich version of Virtue and Vice, off the group's 1999 release By Your Side, pulling those harmonies out again for the title track a couple of tunes later.

There was lots of time for jamming and solos of every kind throughout the night, as exemplified by the seven-minute-long version of Wiser Time, off 1994's Amorica, and Girl from a Pawnshop, off the less-appreciated Three Snakes and One Charm.

This was no formulaic string-of-hits concert. I'd wager most of the crowd would have been hard-pressed to name a tune during the first hour of the show, save for a lovely cover of The Beatles' You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.

They had to wait until near the end of what was a freewheeling yet tight, solid two-hour roots rock show for the big tunes. Even though the Crowes don't play by all the rules, they know what their fans like: Makes-you-wanna-belt-out-the-chorus numbers like Soul Singing and Remedy, and, of course, the one-song encore signature hit She Talks To Angels.