It is always much harder for a band to play live. Artists performing in a studio booth have it far eaiser than their live counterparts. A guitarist often has a click track or backing track at a nice comfortable level in their headphones that they can keep time to and vocalists usually have perfectly reverbed feedback on their headphones and sometimes even an autotune system embedded in the recording software (Cubase and others). Moreover, effects are often added to dry recordings and the mix can be tweaked at leisure for hours and hours before final mixdown.

Getting back to live, one only has to consider the "nerves" component of performing live in front of a large audience, the mammoth task of EQing a large acoustic nightmare venue (just think of the Good Dope Centre in CT), as well as having to add effects and mix on the fly and the chances of sounding lame are all the greater.

A case in point is Dolores O' Riordan of the Cranberries. I bought the Live in Paris DVD and as far as I'm concerned she should have been in plaster of Paris for the duration of their tour ?

Awesome! Another chance for me to sing Joe Satriani's praises. This is one of the few people I honestly feel are better live than in Studio. Effortlessless improvising, taking a song TO the audience, and I could go on and on.

Just a list of bands I have seen live and what I thought of em

1) Bon Jovi - Terrible sound (coulda been the tech)
2) Def Leppard - Same as Above
3) Skunk Anansie - One of the best shows I've ever seen. Amazing energy and sound
4) Billy Joel - MY favourite of ALL live shows I've seen. The man is a God, plain and simple
5) Joe Cocker - Ok, he was pretty old, so I forgive him....
6) Phil Collins - EXCELLENT show, no improvisation at all, but very true to the album
7) Metallica - Was not THEIR Show, but they sure did put on a great show. I should stress, I am NO fan of their music tho ?
8) Sting - Absolutely no stage presence, might as well have listened to the album in my car....

There are probably many more I've seen, just can't remember at this time of the night. Please post bands you've seen live and enjoyed/didn't enjoy!

One thing i have noticed about live shows , is that most SA bands sound better live then there overseas counterparts

One band that absolutely suck at playing live is Bullet For My Valentine.

Sure the wall of death rocks, but they sound like a band made up of 8 year olds gigging for the first time ever.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge bullet fan, but their live stuff sucks.

Adding to that, Muse, best live performance I have EVER seen.

One band that absolutely suck at playing live is Bullet For My Valentine.

i completely agree,their one song i didn't even know what it was until i heard the chorus(it sounded like noise)...but i think that's got to do with the fact they basically got famous off their first album and weren't a band for a long time so they hadn't really gotten their act together like a lot of other bands did

Fall Out Boy are even worse live though,like they REALLY suck and their bassist can't play for shit

Heath wrote: that most SA bands sound better live then there overseas counterparts

He, He, it's just that their engineers usually make fatal assumptions about our venues having decent sound quality. Our guys have home court advantage.

I went to see Toto at the Bellville Velodrome a while back and Just Jinger opened. Typically, Toto's engineer kept the volume down for JJ's show and pumped it up for Toto. The Velodrome is one of those rooms (like the Good Hope Centre) that if you push too much sound into the room, the room pushes back and everything goes to hell. So JJ ended up sounding much better than Toto.

But then, the best sound ever at the Good Hope was the first Sting tour. I was there for the setup and the engineer walked into the room, clapped his hands once and started pointing out where to hang the absorbers, where to set up the speakers, etc.. The show sounded great, but as Satriani mentioned, was pretty boring.

Queen in Sun City also had amazing sound, the band pretty much nailed every song and were riveting onstage.

Jethro Tull at the 3 Arts were great too, good acoustics (I miss that place), minimal lighting, no fog or anything, but Ian Anderson is a wonderful frontman. Still had his voice then too.

Deep Purple/Uriah Heep were great and contrasted each other well - Heep being song based had everyone singing along to nearly every single song, while Purple were just riveting musicians (STEVE MORSE!). Got to meet Steve for a workshop he put on for the company I was working for and he's a real nice guy, very shy and unassuming.

Steve Morse
Alan it must have been quite something to talk to Steve, although his playing doesn't inspire me to play, he is most probably my favourite guitarist. I love the textures he puts in eg. "Highland Wedding"
But how was Uriah Heep and Purple live? Is Mick Box still doing his thing?
The Collective age must be quite scarey!

I haven't seen many live Bands, but I enjoyed Rabbitt (if anyone can remember them), Trevor did some Deep Purple covers and got away with them. I also saw the Bay City Rollers and Sherbet (Howzat, you messed about, I caught you out) in the seventies. I should have actually created a new post called "That wasn't me in the crowd"

IN the UK I did go and see John Martyn, and I couldn't hear what the freak he was singing about. Even when he spoke during the songs, the audience were laughing. But I didn't get it.

Dragonforce really sucks live. Their guitars get out of tune when they do all their whammy tricks and then every thing sounds shit! And they miss allot of notes live and almost picks nothing...just pull-offs

Squonk wrote: But how was Uriah Heep and Purple live? Is Mick Box still doing his thing?

Great show. Old or not, Purple rocked (although I could have done without Gillan's crotch thrusts). Gillan struggled to get some of the higher notes (the high bits in Child in time were done on guitar by Morse), but that's only to be expected. The roadies kept on having to run on and move the B3 back into position 'cos Lord was playing so hard it was going walkabout. Paice is still one helluva drummer - hard hitting, perfect timing and surprisingly textural at times. Morse surprised me with just how well he pulled off the Blackmore stuff, considering that Blackmore is so wild and Morse is so controlled. He and Lord had major fun trading off on the neoclassical stuff, grinning at each other like loons the whole time. The whole band was really good.

Heep were just as good, but in a different way. Vocals were really good - even the high stuff and considering they had to cover two different vocalist's styles. Harmony vocals were dense, complex and absolutely spot on (well, it is their trademark). They did more of a "greatest hits" show and it went down really well. Box... well Mick is still Mick. He's not the world's best guitarist and knows it - and is comfortable with it. Good grinding riffs and solid rhythm parts. He took only one solo, where he just trilled two notes for a second then smiled at the audience (who cheered) then he did it again (they cheered again), then he pointed at one half of the room and trilled again (half of the room cheers), then pointed at the other half (and so on). Carried on for about two minutes and ended with wild applause. He didn't embarass himself trying to do anything fancy, but he entertained them and they appreciated it.

I should have actually created a new post called "That wasn't me in the crowd"

LOL! I have more than a few embarrassing parts of my CD/record collection, but haven't really gone to any shows I regret - takes a lot to get me out to see them in the first place, so I reserve it for the really good artists.

I had a very very very hard time seeing Taking Back Sunday.

I had a very very very hard time seeing Taking Back Sunday.

Holy crap, I LOVE Taking Back Sunday! I've seen a few of their live videos on youtube and Adam Lazarra's voice is not that good, I'm a bit dissapointed by their live performances, but still love the band though

Holy crap

hahaha,where i read that i read it like that "Achmed the dead terrorist" comedy thing :-[

SILENCE!!! I KILL YOU ? ?

Another thing people aren't aware of is that Music DVD's released by bands are re-mixed and sometimes re-recorded. Yes...re-recorded for a live DVD. most of the time the band is flawless but sometimes they go into the studio to re-do some parts.

So you can't really judge accurately from DVD's. However I just came back from Witchfest and watching Carcass play flawlessly was a real eye opener at how poorly most bands in SA play and sound, as they(Carcass) were, and I'll say it again, Flawless! (from where I was Standing at least)

Though they did take around an hour to setup their gear and mics and tones etc.
You can tell bands who's priority isn't tightness.

When it comes down to recording, it's as easy as "do it again" when you make a mistake. When it comes to live, you only have one shot at nailing a part.
...Or you could stop the song tell everyone you want to do it again and make everyone think you're full of shit lol
One main thing that really got to me at Witchfest, or made me walk away after watching the first song of each band was that it looked like the priority of the younger bands was to show off more than to play their guitar parts correctly...then watching the older guys and the bands that have been around longer you'll notice that they're playing really well and are actually enjoyable to watch.
I won't name and bands as I'm not here to bad mouth.

A good percentage of the crowed is oblivious to what "correctly" is too so most often they get away with it.
Tip: How to tell who in the crowed is a criticing muso if you're concious about it. Look for the un-impressed looking guys normally standing at the back but in the center of the FOH speakers, with their arms crossed ?

Wolfve wrote: WHATS UP WITH THIS BANDS THAT GOT COOL CDS BUT SUCK ASS LIVE......???????

Like Abba, for example? ? Some bands rely a lot on studio gimmicks and wizardry. Abba actually had some pretty good players on their records, and those two girls can really sing; but the work they did in the studio, and which was hard to do in concert, was a large part of their sound. Double and triple tracking, playing with tape speeds - real wall-of-sound stuff. Phil Spector must have been impressed (even if he probably wouldn't admit to it).

Some bands just aren't very good and rely on a different type of studio magic - it's called fixing mistakes.

Some music is strictly in-studio. The Beatles could not have done a lot of what they did on record live.

Not that I think it's necessarily the musician's job to flawlessly reproduce the record, but there are some instances where the songs just cannot be done live. The Beatles had quite a few, so did the Beach Boys. Abba tried but didn't quite get it right.

Speaking of ABBA, just listen to the multiple vocal tracks in Knowing Me, Knowing You and the ability to replicate this live would only be possible with perfectly cued up recordings. This would have been hell to try in 1979!

Not that I think it's necessarily the musician's job to flawlessly reproduce the record

A lot of fans cannot appreciate; a) what goes into recording an album in a studio and b) how good the music can sound when recorded, mixed, re-mixed, processed, autotuned etc etc in a studio and usually are the most dissapointed of all at live gigs when their fave group doesn't sound like the CD! To a certain extent, I feel bands could do well to have the sound crew cue up recordings of instruments or backing vocals to assist when performing complex well known pieces.

Squonk wrote: Steve Morse
Alan it must have been quite something to talk to Steve, although his playing doesn't inspire me to play, he is most probably my favourite guitarist. I love the textures he puts in eg. "Highland Wedding"
But how was Uriah Heep and Purple live? Is Mick Box still doing his thing?
The Collective age must be quite scarey!

Age doesn't have to be a factor. Last year I got to see the Richard Thompson Band in Wolverhampton. Richard Thompson is pushing 60, bass player Danny "no relation" Thompson is nearly 70. But these guys can play! OK... the show doesn't rely on songs about groping up young girls or teenage rebellion, on looks, on having to strike ridiculous poses with guitars, or on having to look great with a blown hairstyle and tight leather pants with studs in them. They just have loads of chops. Over a 2 hour show with no intermissions. Youngest guy in the band is drummer Michael Jerome - and he doesn't have a lot of hair left.

I think there are broadly speaking 3 factors that contribute to the "problem"
1) Not much talent to start off with.
2) No longer give a stuff (see my remarks elsewhere about the Stones)
3) Band hate each other. In a lot of cases the band members aren't friends, they just happen to belong to the same band. So differences can arise and are not easily resolved. The Police reunited this year, went on tour and then half way through remembered why they broke up originally.

Squonk wrote: IN the UK I did go and see John Martyn, and I couldn't hear what the freak he was singing about. Even when he spoke during the songs, the audience were laughing. But I didn't get it.

Vocally he's an accquired taste I think. Very jazzy singer with unpredictable timing and an affected slur in his voice. It's part of what he does. He must be getting on now. He's had a tough time of it. You may have noticed that he plays sitting down these days. That's because he lost a leg a while back - had to have it amputated after a bad infection set in.

Legendary hell-raiser in his day - industrial quantities of booze. I'm not a big fan, but he is an excellent player.

I also think that sometimes it's hard to be a performing artist. I have heard that Joni Mitchell could be a pretty unpredictable live performance. Her songs are often personal and have a lot of emotional content. Perhaps it gets hard to sing those songs over and over. Richard Thompson once observed that it's OK being a painter or a sculptor because you can pour everything you're feeling at the time into a piece of work, and then it goes to a gallery and you never have to deal with it again. But singer-songwriters have to recreate the same work over and over - often for years.

And maybe (oops! I'm on at least factor 5 by now) there's the problem of having "hits". How many times can Paul Simon sing "Sounds Of Silence" and mean it or at least not get bored by it. Perhaps it becomes the same old same old and it's hard for the artist to invest any passion in some songs anymore.

And see my earlier observations about some bands having done what they've done with the help of brilliance in the recording studio. I'm not saying that's wrong or not art, but it's not easily reproduced live and sometimes (most notable example The Beatles) just plain impossible.

That's factor how many now? I guess there's no easy answer to the question, no rules about how to be good or bad in concert. Depends on the artist and the art and what's going on in their lives.

There's also the old difference between "that's good" and "I like that". I might go see a really poor performance, but enjoy it for other reasons - memories, nostalgia for the songs, met a really cool girl, was for whatever reason in a good personal space.

Graeme Parfett wrote: Speaking of ABBA, just listen to the multiple vocal tracks in Knowing Me, Knowing You and the ability to replicate this live would only be possible with perfectly cued up recordings. This would have been hell to try in 1979!

ABBA eventually went on the road with a large band. Three guitarists I think, another keyboard player, large number of back up singers. They had to try to find ways of recreating that massive sound they got in the studio.

A lot of fans cannot appreciate; a) what goes into recording an album in a studio and b) how good the music can sound when recorded, mixed, re-mixed, processed, autotuned etc etc in a studio and usually are the most dissapointed of all at live gigs when their fave group doesn't sound like the CD! To a certain extent, I feel bands could do well to have the sound crew cue up recordings of instruments or backing vocals to assist when performing complex well known pieces.

That gets one into Milli Vanilli territory. How live is live? There were mumblings about Sting a few years ago when a couple of songs started sounding too much like the record and if you counted the number of parts you could hear being played and the number of people on stage you got different answers. Shortly thereafter Sting said that he didn't see why it should be his job to perfectly recreate the record and started touring with a much smaller band.

There are ways of handling it I suppose. Queen never even tried to pretend that they could do Bohemian Rhapsody all the way through in concert. I think the audience wants to not feel that they are being suckered, that somebody is pretending to play when they can't.

+1 with Meir.

Saw Satriani live in India, and it was one the most beautiful concerts i've been to. The sound was in one word, amazing! He played Rasberry Jam Delta V (off Crystal Planet) and imporved into Always with me always with you.

Other notable mentions:

1. Iron Maiden -Desert Rock festival, Dubai 2007 - Brilliant. Dickinson can sing!
2. In Flames -Same festival as maiden. Great sound
3. Megadeth - Great perfomance but Mustaine is sloppy live.

3. Megadeth - Great perfomance but Mustaine is sloppy live.

He has had a hard time hitting a zone live everytime I have seen him.