My vote is for The Eagles. No question of the musical perfection. But every performance by them over the past 20-30 years on TV seems like if any of the guitarists show any sort of personality they will be beaten to death by Don Henley’s drumsticks.
What about other bands can you tell while playing live they just weren’t “into it”?
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Though I never saw them personally, I had several friends who saw The Cars play live, and all of them said it was among the weakest concerts they’d ever attended. The band had no stage presence, looked bored, and didn’t engage with the audience at all (though, I’ve read things that suggest the act was a conscious decision on the band’s part).
This discussion thread on a music forum features a number of people pretty much saying the same thing.
I saw Alan Parson Project once, opening for Yes. Their set was good, if not predictable, but man, they just stood there. No presence at all. We had guest seats at the lighting console, and I just went up there to watch the crowd instead of the band.
Yeah, I saw them live. They came out and said “Hello” or something then just started to play. They sounded great, unlike some live bands do. And when they were done they said “Bye” or thank you or something. Sounded great but you might as well have sat in your car in the parking lot and listened to their tape.
Re The Cars, Ric Ocasek was notable for being fairly reserved and Ben Orr was usually the one who announced songs…and it’s true he never said much more than the name of the next song, if that. Greg was doing his Ray Manzarek imitation of course. None of them would smile or act like they were enjoying it. But they DID provide really, really good sound and were extremely tight. I don’t remember any extended/fat solos, either.
Perhaps strangely, I found ZZ Top to be pretty similar, at least the two times I saw them. They did a lot of corny things (the conveyor belts, the bumper cars, etc.), but they acted very serious the entire time. I know it’s part of their image, but it did seem weird.
Neil Young and CH also seem to take the whole show way too seriously.
99.5% of Grateful Dead shows from the late-1980’s to the mid-90’s so-called “Mega-Dead Era” (recall that Jerry Garcia in died 1995 and along with him the actual, proper band “The Grateful Dead”, the subsequent various spin-off bands notwithstanding) featured virtually zero initial band introductions, no in-between songs stage banter or any other actual verbal communication from the band to the audience, although sometimes after the end of the first set, Bob Weir might say, “We’ll be back in a little bit.” and after the encore, perhaps a quick “Thank you, goodnight.” but even that was hit or miss.
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers really didn’t show any stage presence. No real interaction with the crowd. I suspect, though, that Steve is a bit tired of having to be ‘on’ all the time and just wanted to play. I don’t fault him for it. Good music.
I have heard that Joe Cocker doesn’t interact at ALL. Plays, and is gone.
Tom Petty really did have a nice show and you could tell that he was close to his band. Very sad. Too soon.
Aye: Cars live was the exact same thing as the record, you just had the band standing in front of you while you heard it. Bore-ing. Blondie wasn’t much better.
One I just remembered, whom I personally saw, though not a rock artist:
When I was in college, in the 1980s, pianist George Winston was pretty popular, for his series of “rural folk piano” albums, such as Autumn and Winter Into Spring. Very atmospheric, very new-age mellow. My girlfriend was a big fan, and when we learned that he was on tour, and coming to Madison, we got tickets to see him.
The stage had a piano and bench, and nothing more. At the time when the concert was to start, a man walked out on stage, wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, socks, and no shoes. He walked to the front of the stage, bowed once, and then sat down at the piano, and began to play. It was Winston, obviously (it being the 1980s, and there not being a Web, none of us had known what he had looked like until that moment).
At the end of each piece, as the audience applauded, he’d turn on the bench to face the audience, bow his upper body once, then turn back to the piano. When the applause died down, he’d start the next piece. I’m not sure that he said a word the entire time; I suspect that he is very introverted, and not comfortable on stage.
I agree – excellent stage presence, had a lot of fun with each other, and with the audience, and clearly enjoyed playing live.
Pink Floyd just stood there, dwarfed by their gigantic circular screen and whatever else was going on, playing background music to their own show.
That doesn’t mean they weren’t “into it,” though. Each band has its own personality. Some bounce around the stage and some just play the music. I’d rather have the music be good than hear the band yell out the name of the city.
Not exactly a band, and author of many of my favorite songs,but watching Bob Dylan in a large setting(ie. a pro basketball arena) is basically watching a little man sitting awkwardly on a bar stool from far, far away for two hours
I never saw Pink Floyd live, but did have the two-tape VHS “movie” of their Delicate Sound of Thunder concert tour, and I agree that there wasn’t much "showmanship,’ in the sense of playing to the audience, but their performance was still riveting to me. I remember watching Dave Gilmour as he finished Comfortably Numb; it was like he was waking up from a dream, and he gave the wildly cheering audience a shy smile.
Twenty years ago, The Eagles (in some form) had already been playing for eighteen years. I think they can be excused for looking like they were phoning it in.
Consider just about any singer who has ever been featured on one of those PBS fund-raising nostalgia shows. I can tell they’re happy to still be able to perform, and that people will still pay money to see them perform, but their performances have become so polished that they’re mechanical, except maybe when they’re actually interacting with the audience. And that’s the part that usually gets cut out of TV performances.
In the 1970s, when the Dead’s audience got big, people crushed up toward the front to get as close to the speakers as possible — either on the right (the Jerry Side) or the left (the Phil Zone). Bob Weir would often spend a while between tunes coaxing folks to “take a STEP BACK…now another STEP BACK” because the band was worried everyone was going to get horribly smashed.
It was always a huge treat when Jerry would actually say something. He had a lovely dry sense of humor. At a 1969 show at the Fillmore East Bill Graham was introducing the band and made a crack about “aspiring to become the world’s greatest cowbell player.” You can just barely hear Garcia behind him drawling “…give up.”
I’ve been to Dylan shows ranging from great to godawful, but the best was in the early 90s in Asturias in northern Spain in a bullring. Shortly after the second set began I left the seats and wandered down to the arena front. The stage was only around six feet high.
The band took a break and Bob played “Mr. Tambourine Man” with acoustic guitar and harmonica, just for me.
im told the Ramones could be great one night and totally drizziling shitty the next…i mean theyed have to start the songs 2 or 3 times … sometimes playing a totally different song than the one they started … and they could be great at pissing off an audience … like taking a break and then get in a fight with each other backstage and just leave the concert in separate directions with everyone waiting for them to come back …
The Replacements, during the 1980s, almost exclusively played while staggering drunk.
Didn’t the Replacements get banned from SNL? Stinson was so drunk that Westerberg (who was himself wandering around the stage) told him to “Fück right off!” (which Lorne Michels didn’t appreciate). I rewatched it later, and damn, they still turned in a great performance.
BTW, I feel so lucky that I caught Dylan on a good night. He was sober, coherent, and get this, seemed to like the human race. A bonus was that he changed the styles and lyrics of his songs.
From everything my friends have told me, he and Van Morrison are a coin toss. Heads/tails; engaged/aloof; sober/not so much…
A boyfriend and I were always amazed at how dull Maroon 5 looked when we saw them making the talk show circuit during their initial rise to fame. I couldn’t stand Adam Levine from the first time I saw one of their videos but I was really shocked that such a limp noodle was considered a heart throb once I saw them perform.
I seem to recall Rush being devoid of stage presence.