It's an interesting question. When a band is terrible live, it's a pretty big black eye for them. Trail of Dead are one band who I like their albums, but they're a pretty painful live experience. It does hurt my opinion of them.
However, I still like them despite the fact that they simply do not sound that great live. No matter how well a musician or band can transfer their album work live, even if they can do it perfectly, it still takes the strong foundation of solid song and album writing to make me like them. So I personally think the album work is more important.
I wouldn't want a band to sound just like they did on the album. Part of the fun of a live show is seeing how they can change a song and still make it be awesome. I still remember the Decemberists concert where they went into an extended "Hava Nagila" jam in the middle of Chimbley Sweep.
I think it depends on the band. Some bands can really blow your socks off live and be pretty good on their album.
------ Aren't there any girls out their who like good music? I need to and want to meet them. My favorite bands are Overkill River, The Nife, Songs:Ohio, and Nuetral Milk Hotel. Please let me know if your into indy music and like to go to show's and drink beer's and makeout.
yeah, I totally agree that it depends. Some music is meant to be listen to on album. Others have so much more power and passion live that you can't feel as much through a recording. The best can capture it pretty well, but there is something about seeing them perform their creation that is amazing.
However, sometimes I'm sadly shocked at the behavior and attitude of some bands. That's always disappointing to find out the people behind the music are total tools.
I think that they are different skill sets. It's truly best when they overlap, but the greatest studio bands are not always great live. Videos/recordings of the Beatles, live, don't seem that great. Alternatively, the Grateful Dead made, imo, one good studio album (American Beauty), but they could mount some superb shows.
--------------- My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. -Philip Pullman
Some music is made to be listened to in private and some is made to be listened to with a group of people. A good punk rock band is way more fun when you see them live than on record. You can drink beer, get in a pit, and get rowdy when you see a punk band live. I love seeing a band like The Dwarves play live because the crowd just goes crazy, but on record they aren't nearly as good.
I prefer to listen something like electronica on an album. DJ sets tend to bore me like when I saw RJD2. It just wasn't that interesting seeing a guy spin records for an hour. I also think hip hop is much better on an album. I have seen some good hip hop shows, but nothing that really blew me away.
But some bands can do both. Wilco is probably the best show i've ever seen and they make great albums too.
I think this already exists somewhere, too, but oh well. It's kind of a tough call for me. I agree that I never like when the live set sounds as polished as the album. The best is seeing a band that's been doing it for a while. I saw Aerosmith (I chose Aerosmith b/c they still have all their original members) a couple years ago and they sounded great. They were polished, but still raw enough that you knew it was definitely live.
One band I can only get into when live is The Hold Steady. I can't stand listening to them on cd, but I really like them live.
One other point I want to explore is if the kind of show a band has makes a difference. Consider the Flaming Lips. Their last few studio releases are very layered and spacey and complex, but live, it's quite different. They're all good musicians, and it still sounds good, but the depth isn't there like it is on the album. The thing is, their show and stage performance is so grandiose and over-the-top that you don't even notice.
Originally posted by bananaicecream: Which is more important to you? Which says "this is a great band" better? a good show or a good album/recorded sound?
If the album doesn't sound good to me, I sure won't see the act live. Then again, I don't go to many shows anyway (lack of good venues in this area, lack of good acts on weekend nights).
I saw the Who, about three years ago. Before Entwhistle died. The played Quadrophrenia straight through.
Now, I don't personally believe that the Who have had an original muscial thought in 30 years.
However, their technical aptitude was absolutely amazing. They have been doing it together for so long, that it was like a magic act.
--------------- My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. -Philip Pullman
I agree with this. Sometimes seeing a band live, however, exposes some of the nuances of a song that you missed on the album and vice versa.
I remember the second time I saw Dinosaur Jnr. It was at a festival and it was the classic scenario where they were one of the main acts but really, the crowd didn't know any of their music. I was so stoked that some of my friends were going to see J rock out and perhaps they would give me a little kudos for exposing them to such a cool band. After about three 10 minutes songs, my friend just hmmphed and said of Mr Mascis "his guitar solos sound like rats." I was mortified (and in fact the solos did kind of sound like rats, if that's possible).
How a band behaves on stage can also really influence my opinion of them. I remember the first time I saw Henry Rollins, he was a sweaty mass and when he spat into the crowd I caught it square in the chest. I sort of didn't mind as it fitted my vision of punk's heyday. However, when the bass player for Dinosaur Jnr. circa 1994 spat on me, I was like "What? You filthy pig!" I haven't bought an album of theirs since.
Another thing is that some bands make every tour a completely different experience. Every time I see eels and Andrew Bird, they look and sound completely different. Different arrangements, different band members, different feelings. eels had their hard rock, we-love-covers, with strings and SUPER punk (no strings attached) tours, all in consecutive years. Bird has evolved so much as a musician and as a member of a (sometimes one-man) band that his shows are always new. I like his current setup with Dosh a lot.
Of course, if I thought their albums sucked, I would never have gone.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
I saw Ted Leo last night, and it solidified his status as a terrific singer - but his band was way incredible. I can usually appreciate albums more if I've seen them performed well live.
For example, when I saw Interpol live they played all of Turn on the Bright Lights, and let me say, that music was MADE to be listened to live. They were incredible.
One thing I hate is when the bands don't bother to get the mix right and the vocals are completely drowned out, and you hear instruments but no lyrics at all.
One thing I hate is when the bands don't bother to get the mix right and the vocals are completely drowned out, and you hear instruments but no lyrics at all.
Yeah, I hate that too. That's not really the band's responsibility though.
quote:
For example, when I saw Interpol live they played all of Turn on the Bright Lights, and let me say, that music was MADE to be listened to live. They were incredible.
I saw Interpol a few years back and they were impeccable. I thought Paul Banks might be a bit shaky live, but he had no problem getting the vocals. The only moment that didn't sound great was during the breakdown of "PDA". Dengler was playing the bassline completely off by a fret or two. I think maybe he was doing it on purpose because he didn't even try to fix it. That or he was just really drunk and didn't notice.
On recordings these days, I'm never sure whether I'm listening to synthetic sound or live sound.
In previous eras the technology wasn't so good - you'd have to reherse for weeks to get it right on reel-to-reel tape. If you made a mistake you had to live with it, but it gave recordings a lot of authenticity.
You can do pretty much anything now. Drum Kits are 'generated', beats are moved around until they're perfectly in time and vocals are auto-tuned. Everything's edited to perfection. It's like CGI in films - they're getting so good you can't see the join.
Arguably, modern recordings are losing validity because they're too processed. I personally know many bands who use synthetic drums in the studio but write down who played them on the inlay card. They get radio airplay regularly, and people actually say how wonderful the drummer is. The technology is that good.
I should add that not all artists are doing this, but it's sad that modern recording techniques are geared towards people's inabilities, as opposed to their talents.
I consider albums to be the standard and live shows to be icing on the cake. I am also one of the very few Grateful Dead fans who love their studio output and could do without their concerts. Notice I said fan and not Dead~Head. I find their hour long, loosely structured jams to be awful but I love most of their catalog and individual songs. I'd say that this is the case with most of my music. I will always go see my favorite bands live but I prefer to hear the songs performed in a similar fashion to the way they were recorded. Counting Crows released a live album a few years back where they restructured all the songs in an extremely different fashion and I disliked every song.
Originally posted by P-Bo: I consider albums to be the standard and live shows to be icing on the cake. I am also one of the very few Grateful Dead fans who love their studio output and could do without their concerts. Notice I said fan and not Dead~Head. I find their hour long, loosely structured jams to be awful but I love most of their catalog and individual songs. I'd say that this is the case with most of my music. I will always go see my favorite bands live but I prefer to hear the songs performed in a similar fashion to the way they were recorded. Counting Crows released a live album a few years back where they restructured all the songs in an extremely different fashion and I disliked every song.
Go see the Flaming Lips then. They rarely deviate from the actual songs. Because of this, it seems like a huge party with a lot of pyrotechnics and such... amazing and fun.
Although it helps if the band can kick ass live, the art of crafting a great album wins out for me every time. After all, at best I'm going to spend a few hours seeing the band live during my lifetime, whereas the album is always there when I want to hear it. This actually reminds me of a comment John Lennon made (in response, I think, to someone mentioning that Paul McCartney was all about the live experience) saying he was an "album guy." He said, basically, that's where the performer gets as close to what he hears in his head.
