Surprise! The Counting Crows are coming to The Riviera Theater for the A&O Ball. While tickets are still on sale for the tenth most popular artist at NU, according to Facebook’s favorite music feature, here’s what you need to know to truly enjoy “Hanginaround” the venue.

10. The Crows are more experimental than you think. Their use of the same few chords might not be too creative but luckily, in concert, lead singer Adam Duritz changes up his songs. He’s known for adding sections, singing new verses and sometimes even using lyrics from other musicians such as Bruce Springsteen and George Gershwin. Plagiarists or geniuses, you decide.

9. Child’s play. The band’s name is actually from an English nursery rhyme. You may remember it from your jump roping days: it starts, “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three’s a wedding, four’s a birth, five is Heaven, six is Hell, seven is the Devil himself…” The rhyme alludes to the practice of counting crows in order to tell the future. Maybe on Thursday, you’ll see your future too.

8. Can’t all be winners. Though Paula Abdul’s saucy cat (or another rabbit) might beat it in sex appeal, Adam Duritz as a dread-locked bunny who is “Accidentally in Love” garnered the band an Academy Award nomination for best original song in 2004. Sadly, “On the Other Side of the River” by Jorge Drexler took the prize. The Spanish song never became a radio hit. Way to show them.

7. Boy Interrupted. Adam Duritz has a well documented hard time with mental breakdowns. Word on the street is that they don’t get along, or perhaps, they get along too well because he has these breakdowns a lot. His battles with depression and a dissociative disorder (a condition that distorts reality), have greatly influenced his songs. We think Duritz will keep it together for a bunch of Northwestern kids, though.

6. Singing his throat out. Duritz is also prone to strange physical ailments. Easy listening fans were crushed everywhere when both The Wallflowers had to drive with “One Headlight,” solo after the singer-songwriter developed nodules on his vocal chords. This forced The Crows to flake out on shows co-headling with The Wallflowers and Live in 1997.

5. The Counting Crows steal. The current band line-up includes two members (bassist Millard Powers and drummer Jim Bogios) who used to play back-up for Ben Folds. Maybe it’s because of Duritz’s lovely, healthy head of hair, maybe it’s because the new players saw the debauchery of the Lakefill on Dillo Day in 2006 or maybe it’s because of Ben Folds has a reputation for not being the nicest, friendliest guy. Either way, women and children, please watch your belongings, The Riviera Theater is not responsible for any lost or stolen purses or musicians.

4. The Crows like it when you steal too. Come out all you boys and girls with hand-held recording equipment and fear no longer! The band encourages its fans to record concerts and share the recordings. They even have a trading network.

3. Enter Sandman. No, The Counting Crows are not huge Metallica fans but they are huge fans of another sort of Sandman, one that’s a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. Their songs “Murder of One” and “Angels of the Silences” have plenty of references to fill pocket-protected hearts everywhere once Battlestar Galactica is over.

2. Chicks dig dreads. Duritz, despite all, is a charming fellow. Or, he’s got something because he’s managed to date both on and off-screen friends Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston. Just call him the Brad Pitt (or David Arquette, it that’s your thing) prototype — if you squint really hard, grab some scissors and get a lobotomy, you can totally see the resemblance.

1. “Mr. Jones” is not about Adam Duritz’s penis. The Counting Crows’s hit with touching lyrics like, “Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales / Stare at the beautiful women / ‘She’s looking at you. Ah, no, no, she’s looking at me,’” has been speculated upon since the 90’s as to the true identity of “Mr. Jones.” The No. 27 on VH1’s “100 best songs of the 90’s,” Duritz explained on VH1’s Storytellers, is about him and his friend Marty Jones. As much fun as it is to imagine him talking to Little Crow about wanting to be a lion, it’s sadly not true.