Never seen The Last Night Of The Proms?Originally Posted by Splicer
Never seen The Last Night Of The Proms?
I remember I was so pleased to get the DVD of Genesis in 1980 on the Duke tour. It includes the prog classic One For The Vine - could Phil Collins be bothered to sing it properly? No, in fact he sang all of the older stuff poorly, the writing was on the wall for the Genesis Prog era, you could tell Phil was keen to move on to pop songs.
Also agree with what others said about Steve Walsh & Kansas, very painful.
Speaking of Genesis, has anyone been to a Genesis show where they performed "Fountain of Salmacis" live? After the line "Both had given everything they had" I invariably sing along with the "aah-aah-aah-aah-aah" hardly realising I am doing so. it's a reflex action, like blinking. The presenters of the "Tabletop Genesis" podcast said exactly the same thing; none of them are able to stop themselves singing that bit, they are singing it before they are aware of it. I find the same thing in the middle of "The Lamia"; I find myself singing "We all have loved you, Rael" every single time.
THAT'S the kind of spontaneous singing along that is totally appropriate at rock concerts, if the audience are so inclined. NOT the ridiculous business of singing your bits when instructed by the MC.
Yes and its definitely because he would get bored playing the same thing every night so he changes the song formats and the order of songs -he once said VDGG had never played the same set twice although that may not have been true of the last tour with its two 20 minutes pieces in. But I think most of his audience are happy with that -they tend not to expect a singalong set of golden oldies -they expect to be challenged. The only guy I know who has a new album out, then goes on tour and plays nothing from the new album! (not always, but sometimes)
^ One thing I've always liked about Hammill is how, like Gabriel, he utilizes many different voices in his approach to singing - from "choir boy" purity to raving maniac and everything in between.
But live he often ends up just shouting through all the songs. On "Room Temperature Live" he does this and kind of ruins (IMHO) beautiful songs like "Where Do the Actors Go". But it's his choice if that's what he wants to do.
In regards to the once great Steve Walsh, I think he's just been desperately trying anything to get through the night for the last 25 years. He actually improved a bit in the years after "Live at the Whiskey" but still never regained his voice. It must have been frustrating for a great singer like Billy Greer to have to listen to Walsh every night knowing that he (Billy) could do much better.
Re: Audience participation,
The best one I ever experienced was when I saw Blue Man Group. The whole concert was sort of a satire on the conventions and cliches of the "big arena rock concert", presented as a sort of a seminar, if you will, with a narrator speaking songs, explaining the various "rock concert movements". Anyway, there's one song they did, where the chorus actually is: "If I sing a song, will you sing along, or will I have to keep singing all alone" (or something like that). So after the singer (actually their guitarist, who appeared to be cajoled into handling lead vocals, though that was obviously part of the show) gets to the end of the song, the band goes into sort of a breakdown and we're introduced to "Rock Concert Movement (whatever it was I forget the number): Getting the audience to sing along". So one of the Blue Men grabs a handheld camera, runs over to the podium where the singer had been reading the lyrics from, and projects onto the screen the page of lyrics we were supposed to sing, with him using his finger as sort of a "bouncing ball" thing. Hilarious!
The other one I remember was the first time I saw Kiss (oh, SHUT UP!), and they did Do You Love Me. I remember at the top of the song, Paul Stanley sang the first line, "You really like", then holds his hand up to his ear, and we the audience sang the rest of the first verse for him.
The thing that drives me crazy is when they stretch the audience participation out unnecessarily. I can see a couple run throughs of the chorus bit, especialy if it's a big hit, but sometimes it'll be considerably more than just a couple. And then sometimes they gotta do the "Let me hear you say 'ROCK N ROLL!' or "Let me here ya go 'YEAAAAAAAAAAAH!'". Then you get the "OK, just the balcony", then "Just the women", then "Just everyone down here in front", etc, etc. Alright, already! Cut to the coda and wrap it up so we can get the frell outta here! I've got work in the morning (or school, or whatever).
And then you've got the shouting contest, as exemplified by Iron Maiden on the Live After Death video, where Bruce Dickinson splits the audience in half and engages them in seeing which side of the crowd can shout "I'M RUNNING FREE YEAAH!" the loudest. Oy!
Everybody in the restrooms.... LET ME HEAR YAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
OK now everybody in the beer lines.......
Well, Freddy Mercury turned audience participation into an art form (for better or worse)
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Fripp should try that sometime.
Fripp's version would go something like this:
"It has been suggested by my bandmates that we engage in a bit of audience participation. During this time, we will play and the audience will remain attentive."
Mongrel dog soils actor's feet
"Fripp" should be a verb.
Is this the new millennium equivalent of the drum solo?
How to spoil a live album - feature audience sing-a-longs. I know people love these at the time, but they don't make for good listening at home.
Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?
Dug Pinnick does this (make the audience sing it) with Goldilox all the time. Drives me crazy. Still King's X are in my top 5 live bands and I love them to death. Just wish I knew why he didn't want to sing that stone classic song.
I want to hear an artist retain the heart of a song while still taking plenty of liberties....and the risks that make live performances exciting.
To be honest, Paul Simon is a great example....I love his last live album. Meanwhile, James Taylor is far from literal, but closer to home because he's often dealing with five-part harmonies. I love him live also.
An artist has no responsibility to sing the song in a way that allows the audience to sing along; he/she's biggest responsibility is, imo, to ensure the song that's been sung for forty years still sounds fresh, and not tired...something that has to be sung. How that's done varies from musician to musician. Robert Plant is another who takes great liberties ... largely because his range isn't what it used to be. And I'm fine with how he has adapted,
For me it's down to commitment. I don't mind changes if they are still performing the songs like they give a damn about what they are singing.
This.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Two that came to mind first that no one mentioned...
Cedric from The Mars Volta live for the most part a) couldn't remember the words, b) would change them with garbled crap screaming, and more often than not, c) can't sing live to begin with really. Also Adam Duritz of Counting Crows is notorious for being constantly stoned and just botching tons...
Agreed about H...most videos of them i've seen at particularly high points that are powerful on the album they make them completely different, for the worse.
Strangely though, i'm all for the MUSIC being different each night but sometimes vocals have to be in the right spot, and if they're done wrong it kind of ruins it for me...for instance too, echolyn's Lovesick Morning as a duet with Ray and Chris didn't convince me as much at their last NEARFest appearance.
Me too. His take on it from "That's Why I'm Here" is pertinent and typically grown-up:
Perfect strangers can call you by name
Pay good money to hear 'Fire and Rain'
Again and again and again
Some are like summer coming back every year
Got your baby got your blanket got your bucket of beer
I break into a grin from ear to ear
And suddenly it's perfectly clear
That's why I'm here"
Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?
Bob Dylan is the best/worst for it
Surprised nobody has mentioned the clown prince of this sort of ting - Robert f**king Plant in his Zeppelin days. Hard to think of another singer who insisted on beating every damn song in the set into the ground with his caterwaulings - whether the tune merited it or not. In fact, the one thing that always irritates me about the otherwise immaculate Led Zeppelin dvd is their complete inability to play ANY song straight, with Page and Plant being the principal culprits at stretching out even the most marginal of tunes into 10+ minute epics of tedious vocal/guitar pyrotechnics. Just once in a while you really wish they'd learn to appreciate that less is often considerably more.
This lady showed how crowd participation is done:
Stephen Stills. I rest my case.
I agree that the bones of the song should remain recognisable. Bob Dylan is the world's worst for this - often he mumbles his way through a verse or two & it's the chorus before you know even know what song he's playing.
Also, I saw Francis Dunnery a few years back, billing his UK tour as a sort of "best of It Bites", but every song (and I mean EVERY song) was played in a completely different style from the original. Now that's fine if you wrote the thing - it's yours to do with what you like on a solo tour - but if you are selling tickets on the back of the band name, you have a duty to give the people what they've paid for, or at the very least, warn people in advance of tickets going on sale NOT to expect them to sound the slightest bit like It Bites. As it was, it went down about as well as a cup of cold vomit with around half the audience, while the other half seemed OK with it, but it was not the rapturous reception his band would have received had they played most of the songs "straight".
Never take your audience for granted or treat them with contempt. By all means improvise & experiment with some of it - Peter Gabriel is a good example of someone who gets the balance right.
Kcrimso said:
Well I think it is up to the performer to do what ever he or she wants and audience should shut their mouths during the performance. I hate it when concerts turn into some kind of karaoke show.
Socrates said:
I hate sing-along, clap-alongs. When I go to a gig I want to listen to the performer, not the guy next to me who as often as not can't carry a tune to save his life.
I say: What they said
If Page and Plant were bad at doing it then, in reality, like i mentioned before Cedric and Omar were ever WORSE at imitating it.
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