Some bands…god bless their hearts, they just can’t sound right whenever they play live.
The saddest case, in my opinion, is Animal Collective. They have amazinggg studio work and I have loved their sound once I was able to get into them. Sadly, even though they seem to be bursting at the seams with artistic, experimental talent, they just sound BAD live. It feels like every live video of them has a deaf audio engineer at the booth. Stupid, little sounds are too loud or parts overbear on eachother (just another way of saying its too loud, I guess :rolleyes:). Panda Bear, their lead single also seems to just want to sing to loud instead of keeping his voice hatched down. Singing loud, while it may work for some (Jeff Mangum), does NOT work for Panda Bear.
Here’s a comparison so you guys can see for yourself.
Out of all the bands that I’ve seen, Motley Crue has to have been the worst. They were not very interesting, didn’t sound all that great, and the drum solo was boring. I got free tickets and I still felt ripped off.
From what live recordings I’ve heard, the Doors could be horrible live; sometimes the magical spark of their studio work was missing completely. On the other hand they could also be amazing live, when Morrison wasn’t too drunk or stoned to be off his game. When I hear the good tracks it’s amazing to think they had only keyboards and one guitar for melodic instrumentation, and Densmore’s drums were usually unamplified. Speaking of Densmore I think his jazzy subtle touch that worked so well in the studio was unavoidably absent on many of the live tracks since it doesn’t carry so well in arena-sized venues.
Both bands have an incredible number of really good songs, but live they do/did the same thing: stand still and play the songs exactly as they are on the album. No audience interaction whatsoever, no deviation from the recorded version at all.
A lot of the New Wave minimalists had this problem I think. I liked that kind of music, but I can see how a live show of it could be boring. “You should’ve been there, man! The ironic detachment in the air was palpable.”
Saw them at Coachella 2011. The stages have two screens. Most bands show live play, the more sophisticated might mix in music or misc videos with nice transitions, etc. Never mind the music; Animal Collective showed us the worst visuals I have ever seen. It’s like the “Visualizer” in WinAmp or iTunes, except less sophisticated or complex, and horribly pixelated. I only think someone in the band got their middle school-aged son to make it.
It’s a BIG crowd. I was hemmed in by high hippies and bad music. They don’t engage the crowd. I suffered through the set (main stage). Finally, whatever one thinks about Arcade Fire, they mostly salvaged it with a well-done show afterward.
At least that would have been tolerable. I saw them in '81 and they were awful. They were almost Milli Vanilli different from what they sounded like on their albums. Bad night, maybe!
I saw lots of bands in the '80s…The Cars were the worst. The only saving grace was that XTC was the warm up act (embarrassingly my ignorant friends heckled them) :(.
“Blondie”? Who??