For all you people who are into music - and I mean real music, not Maiden, Blcksabbath, or Megadeath - here's an interesting question to to waste time thinking about. Why the heck can't you're favorite artiste perform well on stage?? Oh come on, you know that all his live performances SUCKED!
Have you ever noticed the (complete abscence of) quality your singer has when it comes to a live performance? Take, for example, Sting. He's one of my musical idols. Amazing music since god-alone-knows-when. I recently came across one of his more recent albums, called "All This Time" where he sang all his famous hits like 'Roxanne', 'Fields Of Gold', 'A Thousand Years', and so on live. And he sucked. He (quite literally) wasn't singing it. He was speaking it, with a little pitch adjustment here and there.
Now everyone may think it sounds damn cool to give their concerts a 'personal' touch, and make the audience feel (almost) interacted with, but in reality, all they do is spoil one heck of a good song for no real reason. And to top this off, people pretend to have loved it, just so they can be Cool, and be part of the In Crowd.
As far as I know, the only artist that is an exeption to this is Dire Straits. Their album "Alchemy", is live in london, and it is electric!!! If you've heard 'Sultans Of Swing' and liked it, you will go bananas after hearing the Live version - 10 minutes of a pure, electric, sensational Mark Knopfler ceation at its absolute best. WOW. Him and Joe Satiriani are the only guitarist - performers that do a really good job of it - intentionally.
Of course, there's other people who do it well in concert. But that's not because they want to do it that way - it's because they know no other way to do it, and so it sounds a lot like the recorded thing, which, frankly, I don't think the mob - oops! - crowd minds.
A classic example is (forgive me Aasimah) Bryan Adams. Sure, he's got some good music, looks, and voice, but damn, he's got absolutely no creativity. Not that its a bd thing, I thought that he performed really well on stage, coming and getting some girls to sing wit him and all. And that would only be possible if he stuck to his original tune, which he did.
And, to give due credit to Arjun's Gods, Maiden didn't perform that bad either, and I quite liked a live recording (that shouldn't make sense, right...? ;-) ) of Metallica that I heard.
If you look inside and question yourself, I'm confident that you will find you feel the same. Some one should sue these rich p*mps for emotional trauma or something. I mean, how can anyone put up with bad music?? Even the artist him/her/themselves?
4 comments:
i TOTALLY agree with u abt wat uv said abt live performances....
ok...1 little thing... perhaps u heard sting on one of his bad days....cos i heard some of his live performances and they r simply amazing. No artist can be expected to perform at their best on every single occasion...so sting HAS had some good moments as well. Of course there are ppl like avril lavigne who screw up their live performances every single time...simply cos they have no stage prescence and rely too much on digital effects for their albums to sell.
Dire straits might be a good example of good live performnaces, and I know im going to get beaten up for saying this...but another example of an artiste who does a good job live is john mayer. Im serious. Im not saying this out of bias...this is one of the reasons im a big fan of his. For proof check out his album any given thursday which is a two hour performance at birmingham alabama....and make sure u listen to the whole show and not just 1 song. Ive seen the dvd version...so there are a few things i noted that would in my opinion count towards a good live performance.
a) As aveek said, u have to actually be capable of singing live. The people in the audience are going to compare ur voice with the one uve heard on cd...so the more 'digital remastering' u do...the more screwed up ur live performances are going to get.
b) Again..as aveek said, too many artistes sing just the same stuff that the albums have, with nothing extra. I mean...lots of artistes have the same guitar solos, same arrangement, same effects...no one would want to pay so much money for going to a concert if they can hear the exact same thing on their cd player. john mayer for example, has extended guitar solos, creative intros, plus he sometimes chops in bits of other popular songs into the ones he plays on stage, which makes the concert experience so different from the cd experience.
c) Artistes have also been guilty of being TOO creative...to the point where the audience cant recognise the song anymore. It has to be spiced up, not transformed into something completely different...the audience still has to be able to sing along. Otherwise its just gonna sound like an unrecognisable version of the Star Spangled Banner by someone trying to show off before a sporting event.
d) Stage presence is super important. The audience SMELLS it when a performer is nervous. Singers need to really be comfortable on stage to get the message across and aware of wat they are doing. So many artistes try to pass of as being cool on stage but their body language reveals much more. On the other hand, some performers just forget the fact that the audience exists, so it would look like ur looking at the singer not as a performer on stage, but instead through a security camera at his house which he doesnt know is there. When that happens...the audience disconnects...it looks like the artiste doesnt care anymore.
e) One of the things that really annoys me when i watch live concerts is REALLY DUMB AND CLICHED BANTER. examples include: "Hey New York!! gimme a little love!!lemme hear you scream!!!". Even worse are the story-of-my-life ones: "All you have to do is believe in yourself. Thats why im here today." PUH-LEASE. Stupid banter shows that the singer undermines the audiences intelligence. U might think that this isnt important, but it is. Banter reveals the personality of the singer, and wat the singer is about, and that is really important to create a connection with the audience. It works better when its extempore...it would seem more like a natural conversation with a friend...its more likely to be totally fake when its prewritten...and thats a major turn off to any audience member.
f) this one is my personal opinion. Go easy on the on stage dancers, the lavish sets, the flashy costumes and pyrotechnics. Sure...a few flames might be fun, but the fact is that the audience came to listen to MUSIC. Keep it simple. Any Britney Spears concert has so many light effects and choreographed sequences that the whole focus is practically shifted off the music. However...there r ppl who enjoy this, so i shall say this is my personal viewpoint.
g) Lots of singers are so jaded with singing the same songs over and over again, night after night, that it sometimes loses the meaning that it originally had for them. When the artiste stops believing his song, then it shows in the performance. The instruments might be perfect, the notes may be perfect, but it isnt convincing anymore. Its just a bunch of words set to a tune, and it doesnt convey any emotion. A good performance would involve the singer FEELING his song instead of just singing it.
h) The last and hardest thing for the singer to do is connect with the audience. Whether the singer is playing for 30 ppl or 30,000 ppl, everyone of them has to relate to the performance. Elvis was known for the connection he made...every single girl in the audience would feel like he was singing to them and ONLY them. And this isnt something that can easily be developed...it just happens. thats the reason why for evry 100 amazing singers, perhaps 1 would make it big. Its just some extra magical factor that some ppl happen to possess...its like wat Simon Cowell calles the X factor. U have to have IT.
So....there r probably a few other minor points...but i think ive listed out the main ones...and i like john mayer cs i feel he meets the requirements...and perhaps if aveek analyses dire straits music he find that he likes them for the same reason.
Live concerts really prove the prowess of a singer. To have a good performance, not every song has to be perfect, not every note has to be right. Some songs will turn out better than the others. But thats the beauty of it. U go into an auditorium or an amphitheatre or a stadium to watch a concert and u DONT KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. The fact that a singer is capable of messing up is wat puts the performance in a more real perspective, and therefore adds to the experience.
Ok...that was long enough. Something that had been playing in my head for a while...and aveeks post made it all tumble out:D:D
So why didn't you just put up a post...? The comment was larger than the post itself! Hehe... Nice to hear from you... Yes, Sting does have some very good performances, but the entire album was a let-down, except for Fields Of Gold. WOW.
metallica, and maiden rule, your just pathetic
and they can ACTUALLY perform on stage, they ACTUALLY write their own lyrics, and they ACTUALLY sing them. (hint hint ashley simpson)
Joe SATRIANI (watch spelling) is a god. that i will not contest. Kirk Hammett (metallica lead) was his pupil...
and after coming to muwci and seeing the crap guitaring, i do believe hemanth is the best guitarist ive seen (even though he has no taste and goes out with my sister. ouch. come to think of it, even my sister has no taste. double ouch)
and if you want REAL LIVE performances, stop listening to pop, grow up and listen to REAL classical music.
go watch the Berlin Philharmonic if you want to see real music performed by real people and not synced from the background.
'nuff said
arjun
yeah...i LOve fields of gold....wat an awesome song...
-Snebert
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