# Songs you like that just never cut it when played live. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712 "2005-09-08T20:45:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/21 "2005-09-09T19:08:05Z")
> [@Foaming Cleanser](#): > > I think it’s too late. I can find practically nothing about The Aeolion on Google — not even its address, so it probably was torn down decades ago (but I know nothing of New York). It was on 42nd St., across the street from the library. I’m pretty sure the building is still there, and I’ve been to that block of 42nd St. looking for it. There are two possibilities, looking in through the doors they both look like ordinary office lobbies, so I don’t think it’s a concert hall anymore. We’ve got less than 19 years to get it changed back. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/22 "2005-09-09T19:50:57Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I ought to have added in my OP that I also get irked when a band decides to change the key of a song when performing it live. To me that’s no longer the song and it invariably makes it suck. Tull, the Stones, Madonna, and many others are guilty of this. Shit if it’s so hard to sing it, record the damn thing in a comfortable key in the first place. Don’t tease me! I have no problem with this if the artist captures the feel of the song. I appreciate different arrangments and even different keys. Elton John singing “Don’t let the Sun Go Down” in a lower key still sounds great. “Crocodile Rock” not so good - the high “la’s” are essential to the '50’s feel of the song. I also liked Page/Plant’s Middle Eastern rearrangements of some of their songs on that No Quarter CD - like “Gallows Pole”. ---
**Author:** ![joemama24\_98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@joemama24\_98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joemama24_98)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/23 "2005-09-09T20:17:04Z")
Sweet Child O’ Mine. Really, just about anything GnR, although they are one of my favorite bands. I was there, man, I was there. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/24 "2005-09-09T20:38:35Z")
I caught Garbage at Bumbershoot recently and the live version of _Push It_ was limp as hell compared to the studio version, of Course Shirley choosing P P P Pushit over the studios angry and abrupt Push It definitly didnt work. sounded like a weird mix of the Garbage song and Salt and Peppa’s song Push it good lord is that even vaguely coherant? ---
**Author:** ![Foaming\_Cleanser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Foaming\_Cleanser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foaming_Cleanser)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/25 "2005-09-09T21:43:04Z")
> [@Robot Arm](#): > > It was on 42nd St., across the street from the library. I’m pretty sure the building is still there, and I’ve been to that block of 42nd St. looking for it. There are two possibilities. . . … I found the [address](http://www.garlic.com/~tgracyk/whiteman.htm). > [@](#): > > On the afternoon of February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Concert Hall at 34 West 43rd Street, Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra (“assisted by Zez Confrey and George Gershwin”). . . . But if another concert comes to pass anywhere, a word of warning. My absolutest bestest favouritist live-concert recording is Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. When visiting Britain in 1987, I nearly ascended to the heavens in my own personal rapture when I discovered a “second Carnegie Hall concert” was to be played that night in London. I waited for three hours to score a cancelled seat — and got one. I’ll remember my disappointment until the day I die. Of course, the causes of the disappointment weren’t all the band’s fault (though some of it was). The '38 concert was as much jam as it was jazz, and I should have remembered that at the so-called second concert. But the musicians must have showered in starch that afternoon. However, in 1924 the scores would have been followed more closely than at a free-wheeling concert 14 years later, by which time big-band jazz had evolved and matured. And without any recording of the first Gershwin concert to etch it in stone, a second concert could not be compared to the first one. However, other things would come into play, so your expectations may be a little high. ---
**Author:** ![bytheway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df705f/32.png) [@bytheway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bytheway)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/26 "2005-09-09T22:33:56Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > I recently heard a live version of Manfred Mann’s “Blinded By the Light”. > > Not so good. Persnally, I like the live version from Budapest Live. Perhaps it was enhanced post-concert. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2005, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/27 "2005-09-10T00:47:28Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I ought to have added in my OP that I also get irked when a band decides to change the key of a song when performing it live. To me that’s no longer the song and it invariably makes it suck. Tull, the Stones, Madonna, and many others are guilty of this. Shit if it’s so hard to sing it, record the damn thing in a comfortable key in the first place. Don’t tease me! I’ll suggest an exception to this. When the singer is now in his fifties (or older!), and is performing a song he recorded when he was 23, then he should please please please lower the key! I came across a a late-1990s recording of The Who performing _Baba O’Reilly_ live, and I swear I thought Daltrey was being attacked by an axe-murderer, judging by the way he sounded. Frankly, he sounded like utter shit trying to hit the same high notes he sang on the studio recording when he was much younger. Rush, on the other hand, dropped the key of _2112_ by a step, and Geddy Lee slightly modified the melody when I heard them perform the piece live last year. The result was a much better performance, and I don’t think anybody cared that it didn’t sound exactly like the original. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/28 "2005-09-11T04:59:46Z")
The band Yes does an astonishingly good job of performing their own work live, oftentimes nearly 30 years after the album was released. Except for “Roundabout”. Just drop it. I don’t know what you did in the studio to create the sounds you can’t reproduce live, but just give it a rest. I’d much rather listen to a longer, more drawn-out version of “And You And I” or “Turn of the Century” or “Starship Trooper” than listen to a pathetic and unfocused attempt to reproduce “Roundabout”. ---
**Author:** ![RobuSensei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/919ad9/32.png) [@RobuSensei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobuSensei)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/29 "2005-09-11T17:33:53Z")
> [@Spiff](#): > > Also, I’ll second the posters in this thread who lament bands that try to meticulously re-create studio versions on stage. > > I saw the Pretenders live about two years ago, and if I closed my eyes at that show, I could easily imagine myself at home listening to their songs on CD. > > Where’s the fun in that? I’d like to add my agreement to these sentiments, and cite the worst offenders I ever heard: Mannheim Steamroller. I used to like these guys (and girl), mainly for the liberties they took with meter and tempo (for which, I believe, credit goes to their keyboard player/arranger, Jackson Berkey). Then, I attended one of their Christmas concerts – When a live performance has to be synchronized with more recorded tracks than live players, all the life is sucked out of it. The terms “robotic” and “sterile” also apply, I think. What with that and Chip Davis’ ego-inflated declarations in the program notes, I pretty much stopped liking them after that. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/30 "2005-09-11T21:26:53Z")
I’ve heard Peter Gabriel attempt “Games Without Frontiers” live several times, and it just never quite worked. The second time was at a concert at the Forst Hills tennis stadium, and before performing the song, Gabriel candidly admitted, “We **tried** doing this one on our last two tours, but it sounded shitty. We’ve reworked it, and we hope you’ll like it.” Essentially, he tried to turn it into an audience singalong. Not horrible, but not very good. “Games Without Frontiers” is just one of those recordings that required a studio setting. Getting it right in a large stadium with just a small band is probably asking too much. ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712/31 "2005-09-11T22:39:15Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I’ve heard Peter Gabriel attempt “Games Without Frontiers” live several times, and it just never quite worked. There’s a decent (albeit somewhat reworked) live version from 2004 on Gabriel’s _Play_ DVD, where Pete & his daughter sing while riding around the stage on Segways. (I swear I’m not making this up.) “New Year’s Day” by U2 always sound like ass live because The Edge only plays the piano sections, as a result there’s hardly any guitar in the whole song. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-you-like-that-just-never-cut-it-when-played-live/320712.md?page=1)