Missing the point, IMHO. I think we all go to a concert to “see a performance” - otherwise we can just stay home with the album. “Hear the music”? Ditto - but we want to hear something more than the carefully-layered and -polished exactness of the album, in most cases, or again we could stay home with its repeatable perfection.
“See the performers”? Nah, not really, although there is a thrill in seeing THE Bob Dylan, THE Jimmy Buffett, THE Smashing Pumpkins etc.
But we DO go to “hear the music” and “see the performance” by musicians and singers who are truly invested in the music and performance, not a random selection of essentially faceless players mugging and balleting their way through a standard effort according to a script and a choreography and overpowering stagecraft show’s cues.
Otherwise, just turn your stereo up until it makes colored sparkles behind your closed eyelids, and pretend at home.
“Entirely different” is a bit of a stretch, I think. If I go see the London Philharmonic’s performance of a Beethoven symphony, and I go see the Los Angeles Symphony’s performance, I expect some differences, but we’re not talking about the difference between NiN and Johnny Cash covering “Hurt.” Orchestral arrangements generally ask the orchestras to hew pretty tightly to the score.
And in this particular case, it seems that you know that if you go to the east or west coast show, it’s going to be pretty much the same. Some folks like that. You might not, that’s cool, but the OP’s use (not yours, the OP’s) of “fake” to describe it is silly.
I DO go to “see the performers”. For me (and most people, I’d guess), that’s what it means to “see a performance”.
I can remember back in the day, seeing Blood, Sweat & Tears live, and then some youngster that a friend said I had to hear.
I honestly can not recall one moment from the BS&T concert. We had great seats, it was technically excellent, but it was basically listening to a CD. Ok, I’m old, this was before CDs, but I clearly recall thinking: “Might as well have just bought the album.”
The guy I’d never heard (named Bruce Springsteen), on the other hand, sat on the edge of the stage for a while and told stories. The E-Street Band was great, but he did some solo almost-in-tune acoustic guitar stuff, too. This was over 40 years ago and I still remember those stories.
In an orchestra the vast majority of the performers are replaceable and you’d never noticed they were replaced with someone else. When a replacement starts nobody wants him or her to bring their own interpretation of the music. The conductor is going to tell them how to interpret the music and they damned well better follow his directions.
Well, since this is the Pit…I didn’t care much for their third Christmas album. They went from the sappy (but seasonally appropriate) stories of the first two albums to a heavy piece about death during childbirth and family abandonment. The music suffered for it, IMO.
As someone who works in the Broadway industry, and knows a few of the people on Czarcasm’s personnel list, it seems like the disagreement is arising because TSO walks the line between being a real “band” and being a “show”. I totally get it; when you buy tickets to a band, you want to see the band. If my ticket says The Beach Boys on it, then I better get… well, you know what, maybe that’s a good example for the other side, since they changed members frequently.
So what is it that makes a difference? If Mike Love is the only member I recognize at the concert but they’re playing Brian Wilson tunes, do I care? You bet I do. But if TSO is playing and I don’t know the members anyway, does it bother me that there’s another show happening 3,000 miles away? Eh, probably not. It’s an orchestra, not a band. That, to me, is the difference. I’m not there for specific people; as long as it’s some of the original members and not a “tribute band”, I think I’ll be alright.
I think that’s where the real issue lies. If you consider TSO to be an orchestra, it’s not a big issue. But it’s a band. Their own website says so: http://www.trans-siberian.com/about/band
Calm down. No one’s arguing the dictionary definition of an orchestra, least of all myself, someone who makes his living as a musician. What I’m saying is they identify themselves as an orchestra, and when you look at it as such, you are less inclined to be offended by their transgressions.
As I stated before, I’m with you; I’d be pissed if I bought tickets to see the Stones and Keith and Mick weren’t there. And enalzi makes a good point; they do use the word band on their website (although I think now we’re nitpicking). But I’ll say it again: the disagreement/miscommunication is coming from the fact that some of the performers (at least the ones I know) are from the Broadway world. So perhaps they do look at themselves as more of a “show” and less of a “band”, even if they haven’t done the best job of communicating that to their listeners.
Whatever. TSO is something different. It’s part rock band, part orchestra, part stage musical. Like it or not who gives a shit. At least criticize it on its own terms and not as something it’s never been.
[ol]
[li]Rock band: check.[/li][li]Stage musical: check.[/li][li]Orchestra: utterly tacked-on and meaningless name badge, unless you can make a convincing case otherwise. One violin does not an orchestra make, especially when it’s played far more often as an electric fiddle.[/li][/ol]
So yeah, I will judge them on their own terms: an overblown, pretentious, ensemble production who belong closer to Milli Vanilli on the shelf than to, well, even ELO.
