Random thoughts on concerts

[Mr Peabody]

I attended two concerts last week. By circumstance I ended up at Def Leppard/Poison and guest Cheap Trick. The concert started promptly and we were late so only heard Cheap Trick's last couple songs as we were headed in. If you are Cheap Trick, and only 30 to 45 minutes to play, with your catalog of hits, or well known songs any way, why would you do a Beatles cover? Poison's sound was terrible, they sounded like an opening band. DL a decent show, they played all their hits. A high note in my book was Bringing On The Heartache which started out as an acoustic sort of sing a long and later broke into the original way it should sound toward the end of the song and continued into the instrumental that follows on the album, High & Dry.

7/23, Incubus, they were incredible. Incubus had a small English band open called Duke Spirit, attractive female singer and they had sort an 80's New Wave thing going on. I was really impressed with Incubus, they played for nearly two hours and had the fans on their feet the whole time. It's not that they rocked that hard they just put on a good show, they started with I guess what you'd call their newer sound, playing some radio hits, then went into a few acoustic or stripped down versions of a couple big songs and slow songs, the crowd sang along and was involved, then from that they did a few rockers with the old style but I was a bit disappointed the bass player didn't do any solos. The end of the acoustic version Jose some one brought out the congos. The arrangements on many songs I'd say ventured into Progressive. To be honest I've got one of Incubus's early albums and never really was moved by any of the newer stuff but in concert they were great. The tickets are cheap so if they roll through your town and you want to see a good show I recommend Incubus.

Incubus had a good light and video stage effects going as well which leads me to my next thought or observation that many bands are now using video in their stage show. Even Def Leppard did. Rob Zombie was the first I've seen use video. He had several screens up. Zombie's was more film like footage where most of Incubus was more like images that went along with the lyric or music. One song for a while only had some colored dots dropping down.

This could be coincidence but I also feel the sound at concerts is worse today than in the past, or maybe I notice it more now but I don't think so, I think it's worse. In the day, the snare and cymbals always seemed to come through even if the bass was powerful. Today you get a large pounding bass sound which nearly covers most of the other sounds. This is in general, I'm sure there's a few that stilll know how to set up Maybe I should transition over to Jazz clubs :)

[MasterCylinder]

This could be coincidence but I also feel the sound at concerts is worse today than in the past, or maybe I notice it more now but I don't think so, I think it's worse. In the day, the snare and cymbals always seemed to come through even if the bass was powerful. Today you get a large pounding bass sound which nearly covers most of the other sounds. This is in general, I'm sure there's a few that stilll know how to set up.
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Agreed -- todays smaller suspended speaker arrangements don't hold up to the old big-box setups that SHOWCO and CLAIRE BROTHERS had in the 70s.

Monster PAs that sounded better than anyone else.

[ForeverAutumn]

I can't say that I've noticed that other than the last time we saw Rush. The sound was absolutely abysmal! However, we were sitting side stage and all we could hear was bass and drums. We could barely make out the vocals. But we had a friend on the floors in the centre and he said the sound was great. Still, there's no excuse for bad sound anywhere in a venue these days.

Mr. P. Thanks for the reviews. I thought about checking out Incubus on this tour, but it turned out to be the same night as Coldplay which we already had tickets for.

[3LB]

While I did believe the drums were way loud in the last concert I saw, I had no real problem with the sound - it prolly helped that it was at a shed (an outdoor venue). The bass player was mixed too far down, and the guitarist was mono-toned in that it sounded the same on every song (Coldplay isn't known for musicianship). Martin's tinpan alley piano stood out, as did other keys. There were only so many speaker anyway - I can't remember so few speakers at a concert. No monitors sitting on the ground, a few on stage, the mains were suspended from the rack above the stage - it was still loud as hell, but not uncomfortable (my ears stopped ringing within minutes). Certainly not hi-fi, but this is an MP3 crowd, so the bar is lower.

Coldplay also used a lot of video in it stage show. In fact, they had three or four cameras on the band and had an editor doing some pretty fancy cuts on the fly - looked like a music video. They also had a decent light show as well as some other gimmicks (giant yellow bouncy balls (bring a sharp pencil FA), confetti and other things. With the number of cameras there, I thought maybe they were taping for an upcoming DVD - if they do use it, listen for me...I'm the guy in the background going, "There here! the gods of rock are heeerrreeee!!!! Oh my god I'm gonna pass out...you guys roooool! Awesome! Yeah! yeeaahhhh!!!!!!!"

[3LB]

Maybe I should transition over to Jazz clubs

On the other hand, I can't remember going to a rock concert and thinking about fidelity. I didn't know fidelity was an issue with regards to heavy metal, pomp metal, goth metal or whatever metal. The way most of those guys play drums, I'm not sure if you can get fidelity. Depends on how their kit's setup and tuned and whatnot - with most rock bands, you'd need a good ear to tell the difference twix their snare and cymbals, much less tell the difference twix timpany and highhat, et al.

If fidelity is an issue, you might seek out a nice jazz club or something. Nothin wrong with going to a jazz club. Lots of smaller indy acts play small venues and maybe their sound is better. Maybe a nice, out of the way coffee house or something. ;)

[ForeverAutumn]

As I mentioned, we're seeing Coldplay on Thursday night. They are playing at a baseball stadium, a venue not known for it's sound but it's the largest venue in town. I received this email from the venue this afternoon and I thought that you'd be interested as its pertinent to this thread. The bold font is my own addition...

About The Show: For our two previous sold out AC/DC concerts, we augmented both the audio and video designs to ensure optimal sound and video quality for all of our guests, regardless of their seat location. For Coldplay, we are adding two 35 x 20 feet LED screens stage left and right, to the open concept stage with runways extending approximately 40' into the general admission area on each side of the massive 80' wide stage. We are also strategically hanging additional audio speaker clusters from our roof to ensure that our sold-out capacity crowd is entertained fully. The additional production equipment is being coordinated through Live Nation from local production suppliers including OPTEX, MVI & Towers who are professional production leaders in the event and concert industry.

[Mr Peabody]

I realize Rock is Rock but for the price of tickets today I expect more than pulsing noise loud enough to crack my ear drums. Let me discern some of the music :) Am I sounding old?

Interesting email, please let us know how the concert sounded.