Black Sabbath kept Geoff Nichols offstage but I've seen footage of him onstage in the '90s.Originally Posted by SteveSly
When Don Airey played with Ozzy, he was onstage but they had to build a "castle keep" for him to play inside because the crowds wouldn't stop throwing crap at him!
they all did it, especially today.... the technology just got better and better.
Cheap Trick does that, they've got an offstage keyboardist who also sings back up vocals, and I believe for awhile in the mid 80's, that job was held by Steve Walsh of Kansas fame.
After Jon Lord left Whitesnake, they started using an offstage keyboardist. And of course, Yes famously had an offstage keyboardist on their 80's era tours, as did Hall And Oates. Actually, H&O had two offstage keyboardists, which I thought was funny because they had both Daryl Hall and Charlie DeChant onstage. I guess there were songs where Charlie was playing sax and Daryl was too busy dancing around to play keyboards.
I always thought hiding the ancillary musicians offstage was a strange idea. Do the bands think they're fooling anyone into believing the onstage musicians are playing/singing everything? I'd be worried someone might accuse me of lip synching. That's why I always liked it when bands like The Who, Pink Floyd, Genesis, etc would have their auxiliary musicians right up there onstage, in front of God and everybody.
Sparks show on this tour had a backline of something like 6 musicians hidden by smoke and backlighting. You only really only saw the brothers. Kinda annoyed me to be honest. Yes they're all hired guns but what the frell.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
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Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
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Also how do we know this isnt another wrestling angle for Y2J?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Yes, Walsh did do a tour with Cheap Trick, but he was on stage and not hidden. You can find some video of it out there on youtube.
I never understood the hidden musician thing either. In the Fleetwood Mac example that I gave earlier, they had a bunch of extra musicians on stage already, so why hide one more person. Maybe they don't get paid as much or something? It just seems odd....
Count me among those who don't like hiding musicians on stage.
Me too.
I was watching Dire Straits' 'Alchemy' show on telly recently and it eventually dawned on me that there was a second keyboardist not quite hidden away but definitely not featured strongly on the video.
Bob Ezrin used to play keyboards offstage for Alice Cooper. Hard to imagine songs like "My Stars" without them....
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
I remember when the Bangles were performing Manic Monday live on MTV. The camera showed, but the live audience never saw the keyboardist in the sound booth playing the keyboard part. He was a man, so it would've been unthinkable to have him onstage with a band whose shtick was a "girl group."
When Motley Crue briefly reunited and played on the Tonight Show with Leno, they sounded terrible. Mick Mars was out of tune, and Lee and Sixx were way off beat. The only musician who sounded good was the offstage rhythm guitarist.
Last edited by progmatist; 04-14-2022 at 04:36 PM.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
[QUOTE=SteveSly;1115493]That must have been the only tour where they did that. I remember seeing two different Cheap Trick concerts on MTV, one from like 1981, with Pete Comita on bass, and the other one of the spring break concerts, during their comeback period. Both times, the keyboardist was hidden offstage.Yes, Walsh did do a tour with Cheap Trick, but he was on stage and not hidden. You can find some video of it out there on youtube.
That does seem weird. I thought the Hall And Oates example was weird too, since you know they've got an entire backup band onstage, what would it matter if had two more keyboardists onstage? Or maybe it's something there were the hidden musicians only play on a few songs, and therefore it might seem awkward to have a guy coming onstage just for the handful of songs he plays on or whatever. (shrug)I never understood the hidden musician thing either. In the Fleetwood Mac example that I gave earlier, they had a bunch of extra musicians on stage already, so why hide one more person. Maybe they don't get paid as much or something? It just seems odd...
That would be Tommy Mandel. It is interesting that he doesn't get many closeups.I was watching Dire Straits' 'Alchemy' show on telly recently and it eventually dawned on me that there was a second keyboardist not quite hidden away but definitely not featured strongly on the video.
That didn't bother Neil Young. He gladly brought out one of his techs (a young guy named Joel) to play synth on "Computer Age." This is documented in his In Berlin concert video.
Not exactly hidden but I read somewhere that at some early Roxy gigs Brian Eno was mixing the sound offstage and also playing VCS3. Or was it Pete Sinfield with KC...?
No, I think it was Brian Eno.
It was Sinfield with Crimson. Eno was onstage with Roxy. (Or did Eno start offstage and get promoted to being onstage? Hard for me to remember.)
Eno started offstage and got promoted to being onstage, as far a I know.
Love Buckingham solo and his live shows are fabulous with intense energy.
The two things I would love to change in his stage show is having full acoustic drums as the main drum kit and easing up on the pre-recorded backing vocals. The backing vocals are pre-recorded with band members singing live on top. Songs like "Holiday Road" and "It Was You" can be done without having such a sudden change of vocals coming in. Sounds unnatural.
@ 1:18:02 is "Holiday Road" -- Talk about not hiding the fact they are using backing vox. Stay through the entire song.
queued @ 1:20:00 the BARK LIKE A DOG section, which is somewhat disturbing as it goes acapella with dog barks
@ 31:10 "It Was You" Shows the usage of backing vocals, including extra "ahhhs" for Lindsey. You can see the drummer hitting the pads behind him.
I saw Midge Ure once, just him and an acoustic guitar. He had the sense not to use any pre-recorded anything.
Robert Hunter was one artist I've seen who did a solo acoustic gig but used loops on some songs (this was in 1997). Only trouble is that his sense of rhythm wasn't precise enough to get the loops in synch so it got a bit cacophonous when he used them.
A couple of years ago I saw Suzanne Vega playing a support set for Queen + Adam Lambert with just one guitarist who had a bunch of pedals and used them to create rhythm loops on the fly. As a result, a group of people standing next to me complained all the way through Vega's set how much it pisses them off to have to watch a playback show and why the hell did she even bother turning up if she can't play for real, yada yada. Drove me nuts.
To my recollection there are prerecorded tapes/voices on this excellent album (Haven't got the time to check right now)
update: Around the 22. minute there are used tapes.
If we are getting to prerecorded tapes/voices on albums, I could add this one
I only have the vinyl version, which misses the last 5 pieces.
That must have been Gerry Leonard, also known as Spooky Ghost. He also played on a lot of David Bowie-albums, while he released some fine solo-recordings as well.
https://gerryleonardspookyghost.com/.../suzanne-vega/
Last edited by interbellum; 04-27-2022 at 02:32 PM. Reason: typo in Gerry Leonard's name
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