Great On Record (Terrible Live)
Posted by David Wright on 14 January 2008 - 8:19pm.
I'm sure she was just under the weather, but I recently watched Amy Winehouse's live DVD and although her band were excellent, she wasn't that hot, her dictation was very slurred. She sounds a lot better on record. Who else sounds great on record but terrible live? Embrace? (well, just listenable on record) Stone Roses? Dylan? (a gamble live).........
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Just to be difficult
I saw James Blunt live as a support act couple of years back and he's quite the reverse - better live than on record.
That's good to know...
now I can forgive him for his recorded music, knowing that live he is the canine's nads.
But seriously, KD Lang was even better live than on record each time I saw her in concert.
Steady on
I didnt say he was the anything vaguely testicular - I wouldnt want to get your hopes up...
And don't get me started on old kd lowercase! 60 bloody minutes [that includes the gap for encoure AND the 5 minutes sales pitch] she did when I saw her. Before you ask, no we did not get quality over quantity. Someone who's being going that long should be able to do more than an albums worth of material live.
I'm still bitter and it's been over 2 years now...I really should learn to let go.
How disappointing...
I haven't seen her live since 1992, so maybe she's playing shorter sets now. I seem to remember she played for one-and-a-half hours or so when I saw her on the Ingenue tour. And absolutely brilliant she was too... one of the finest voices I've ever heard live.
The Charlatans.............
...are another one in my opinion much better live than on record.
How times have changed
I had a job in Hammersmith last night and, as I was early, found myself sitting with a coffee and Bruce Springsteen (Live in Hammersmith in 1975) on the iPod. It was pure chance that I was listening to it, but then I got to thinking that it was recorded just a few hundred yards from where I was sitting. And then some bloke walked past me with the somewhat futile and increasingly repetitive chant: "Tickets for James Blunt....anyone.....buy or sell...tickets for James Blunt....anyone...."
I doubt that...
James Blunt was rushing around tearing down posters proclaiming "I have seen the future of rock n' roll, and his name is James Blunt."
British Sea Power
wouldn't want to put people off as the new record is so good but so was open season and i saw them a couple of years ago on said tour and they were just dreary, really the only word. In answer to David Wright I saw Amy Winehouse supporting Arctic Monkeys at MCCC in the summer and she was great, think I caught her just before things went seriously downwards.
New Order
...were frequently bafflingly bad live. cf. the impact their live appearance on ToTP had on the sales of Blue Monday.
New Order
Yes they are terrible live, but have had their moments on record.
Gruesome
They are terrible live. I've given them five chances now and they've let me down each time.
New odour?
I have seen some great New Order gigs, maybe i was lucky!
Some of their stuff wasn't all that easy to reproduce in a live concert. Perhaps they really didn't know how to use their equipment? I saw some good shows though.
I was going to add
Natasha Beddingplant to this list but she's rubbish on record as well.
Saw The La's once.
They were rubbish.
Saw the La's four times.
They were great every time.
Little Village
I bought their terrible album on the strength of their wonderful performance on The Late Show (pre Jools Holland BBC2: remember that?) and would gladly have paid two or three times the price of the album to see them in concert. I bet they rocked.
I saw Little Village...
at Hammersmith Odeon. It was good, but not extraordinary. I remember feeling they were very gifted individuals who weren't really a band.
Little Village
They were OK. Nothing sensational. By the time they got round to playing live, Ry Cooder's bad temper had settled over them like a meteorological depression and it was all over.
Ah
So that was what did it. I remember him looking very moody on that BBC2 performance.
The Auld Curmudgeon himself
Van Morrison was devastatingly awful on both occasions I saw him live. The first time he mumbled his way through a selection of obscure tracks, the second he grumbled an evening's worth of old New Orleans shouters, Guy Barker soloed in every single sodding number & as for how annoying the perma-smiling Georgie Fame was...well. Yet I know people who have come out of his concerts saucer-eyed with wonder. I suppose that's Our Van for you.
I concur
Saw the old sod at Cheltenham Town Hall few years back. 8:00 sat on my seat to enjoy him 8:45 heading to pub.
Didn't know whether to be angry at my hard earned going in his pocket or privileged I was there at one of his grumpy nights.
Morrissey
He's good on record too, but only live do you fully appreciate the scale of the devotion and how you are genuinely in the presence of a living legend.
Must have
caught Lee and his la's on a bad night.
Beirut
Saw Beirut in Dublin last summer and in spite of their debut 'Gulag Orkestar' being one of my favourite records of the last few years, they were appalling. Zak Condon ended the gig with the worst rendition of 'Hallelujah' solo on mandolin in which he forgot the words about six times, getting more and more painful by the minute.
Not so Dandy Warhols
I saw went to see The Dandy Warhols at the Honey Club in Brighton a few years ago on the strength of the excellent Bohemian Like You. It was as if a totally different band who had been taught the tune by someone huming it to them were up on stage. Terrible.
3 great hours!
One of the best things about the Dandy Warhols is you will get a unique concert performance each time you see them.
If you want them to play Bohemian Like You exactly as it sounds on the album, then listen to the album, live they are great and give the audience another insight with their performance, often spontaneous and unrehearsed but never a dull moment.
Can I have my money back please?
The Long Riders - Looking for Lewis and Clarke was scraping around the top twenty, on the strength of that we went to see them. They were doing ok until Sid Griffin went down on one knee to play a solo. Oh no. Bore no resemblance to anything musical what so ever. The crowd stood there slack jawed.
Elvis Costello a few years back, on a Radio 2 sponsored tour, with Steve Naive, Newcastle City Hall, 1/3 full, re-working his back catalogue.
Would've been more fun if he's re-worked his back passage.
Public Enemy. Started brilliantly then after about an hour Flavor Flav was attempting to
a) get girls on stage to show him their 'titties'
and
b) trying to flog from the stage their latest DVD.He had the price written on a sheet of A4 paper. It fell into chaos, a sad note to end on for such a fabulous band. Was like a rap carboot sale. With 'titties'.
Actually, sounds quite good on paper that one. Wish I'd bought the DVD.
Poor Live
Would probably come up with more if i was not snowed under at work but of the top of my head i always thought Snow Patrol sounded terrible live but pretty good on record
Bland Indie
Snow Patrol were terrible at Live 8, very weedy singing voice, better on record if you like that kind of thing. Whilst we're on the subject of bland bands, I have to say I prefer Coldplay on record, Chris Martin's voice isn't brilliant live either.
The Fall, miles better live, well when I saw them last year thay were.
And......whose was terrible on record and live;Bros for starters.
Why would anyone
want to see Colplay live? Was it a penance or something?
Steely Dan I saw for first time last year - much better on record I am afraid.
Elvis Costello is great live and on record as is Richard Thompson.
Better live by far is Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
Pogues - bloody awful live, dont believe the hype.
Saw Van Morrison once - terrible stage presence but the music was sublime.
I agree about Van
Saw him once and the majority of the evening seemed to be spent listening to him shout "Ladies and gentlemen, Georgie Fame" or mumble faux-mystical nonsense.
Also, I really like listening to Josh Rouse on record, but live his voice is wafer thin. I didn't listen to him for about a year after I saw him play.
I agree!
Saw him live and it put me right off. Don't know why he bothered to turn up. Rarely seen anyone so disengaged and disinterested.
Vanbivalent
...you have to know that it is a crapshoot with Van. I've seen him countless times, even paying an astonishing $128.00 last year for his first downtown Seattle show in over a decade. It was a stunning performance. 60% of the shows I've seen were sublime, the rest ridiculous.
Re: Van crapshoot
Did he by any chance play harmonica at all the shows that were less than awesome, and leave the gobirons unloved for the great nights?
Van's harp HORA
..and if he did play harmonica, did he sniff it and pull a face?
Totally agree,
Van's live performances are randomly either transcendent full force gales of soul or travesties of what you'd hoped they would be.
I've also seen him live many times, in all sorts of places.
The most memorable single performance I've seen was not actually one of those when he was on a soul roll, as it were, but an unusual occurence at one of his afternoon Glastonbury gigs, back in the '80's I think.
Around halfway through the set, a helicopter appeared overhead. The crowd's first reaction seemed to be to assume that it was a Drug Squad chopper, presumably eyeballing some nefarious drug dealing going on in that very field. Various invitations to go forth and multiply were bellowed in its general direction, but to no avail.
The helicopter then came lower, hovering over Van's audience, significant numbers of whom could not, by now, hear much from the stage beyond the general chugging of the rhythm section. Simultaneously, a selection of brightly vested security personnel ran into the crowd and began clearing a helicopter sized space in the throng. It became evident that the chopper was indeed about to land, right amongst us.
Down it came.
Those close enough to the whirling dust storm could then see that an unfortunate punter (I believe it was a young lady, maybe even a Word reader these days, given the approximate likely demographic?) had suffered, or was suffering from, a fit. After swiftly bundling the casualty onto the helicopter, the security crew withdrew, the pilot revved up the er, whatever it is you rev up in a chopper, and off they roared, in a fresh whirl of discarded Rizlas, dry grass (it was a hot year) and empty placcie pint glasses.
Meanwhile, onstage, the band chugged on, the same riff having been pumped out for the duration of the casevac operation. I think Van might even have been extemporising a few shouts and grunts throughout. The crowd's attention returned to the music, the band and Van broke into the next verse, and off we went, as if nothing had happened.
Most definitely, a Glastonbury Moment.
Very, very funny...
Thank you for that. "I think Van might even have been extemporising a few shouts and grunts throughout" enters my list of favourite lines.
Top tips
Funny that.. I was at the Midlands Music Festival in Ireland two years ago, and during Glen Campbell's set this helicopter buzzed the crowd before landing close to the main stage. Campbell didn't seem to notice it, he kept on smiling as no doubt the happy pills were doing their job, but a fair proportion of the crowd weren't too happy. It was an old timers festival if you like, quite a few deckchairs. But they didn't seem to mind when they saw it's cargo: It was only Van the Man himself, with the wife and a stressed looking PA.
He was up next (that night's headliner was Dwight Yoakham) and he took to the stage without so much as grunting a 'hello'. He then raced through a dreadful set as quickly as he could before storming off halfway through whatever his closing number was. Before the band could even chuck a drumstick into the crowd all you could hear was the 'whup whup whup' of helicopter blades and - whoosh - the grumpy old bastard flew home.
Tip top
Seen him four times at this stage and he's always disappointed me. Maybe he's not fond of playing on the home sod?
I was deeply disappointed by
Primal Scream (in pre-Mani days) at Glasto.
Me and my mate Henry staggered half way across Somerset to what was then called the NME Stage or The Other Stage or some such chucklesome and original name, then fought our way through the unwashed saucer-eyed hordes to somewhere close to the front, only to witness Bobby fecking Gillespie totally arseholed and unable to sing in anything approaching the right key. At any point in the proceedings, I don't think he was even sure which song his band were playing. Appalling.
I think it was the year (1990ish) when Screamadelica was their current offering, and I had nurtured high hopes of a stormer; hence our Herculean efforts to get to the stage in time for the gig.
Needless to say, I haven't since made any effort at all to watch them live. Except when they turn up on Jools. I'll never leave the sofa and traipse through hedges and fields for them again. Sob.
Primal Scream Live.....
Might have been an off day Vulpes, I saw Primal Scream in a small Uni gig in Swansea pre-Loaded era and they were superb. A noisy version of the Stones with the spirit of punk. Ended the set with a Pistols cover. One of the best gigs I ever saw.
The thing is
...a lot of the poor performers mentioned didn't initially go through 2 or 3 years on the road literally getting their act together. They pretty much go straight into the studio where many sins can be "fixed" or played by someone else, then they do a few gigs to flog the CD. Or in the case of (e.g.) New Order for example they rely on computers to do a lot of the hard work. Basically they aren't very good musicians with little live experience. Compare and contrast with (e.g.) Richard Thompson and many other older acts who did hard time learning their craft.
I think the fact that...
RT is a musical genius doesn't hurt either. Although he practices to this day apparently, so it isn't all down to what's in the blood...
Whoa!
New Order... aren't very good musicians with little live experience
That's fighting talk in these here parts, Twangothan! Listen again to Joy Division / pre-first-split (i.e. up to Republic) New Order and tell me that they're not good musicians. And they've played live hundreds of times so they've got masses of experience in that department.
I think the problem is that Bernard just doesn't enjoy the live experience and tends to get tanked up on his drug du jour before stepping on the boards, with often disastrous consequences. His dislike of playing live, set against Hooky's love of it, has apparently been a major contributor to both splits.
Poor Bob
Saw Bob Dylan In Sheffield last year and he was pretty mediocre to say the least. One can't deny he's a living legend, but his singing and piano playing were very poor and he didn't seem to be playing the right chords on some songs. This isn't good.
Days later
By the time he got to London, he was the best I've seen him.
I disagree...
.... I love Josh Rouse live - mind you, I have not seen him sober as a judge (me drunk, not him).
For me, terrible live - The Foo Fighters. Dave is a great showman but resorts to tuneless shouting live.
Damien Rice was uninspiring to watch but sounded pleasant enough so don't know if that counts. I think I'd just got sick of the hype by the time the gig came round to be honest.
Would make you Scream
I can only echo what other posters have said about Primal Scream. I'd never seen them live before but went to their gig at the SECC in Glasgow last year and they were absolutely godawful.
No amount of Bobby Gillespie shape-throwing and Mani crotch-thrusting could disguise the fact that they were making an unholy din which seemed to involve the various members playing different songs at the same time.
I was at the gig with about 10 others and the universal opinion afterwards over a much-needed beer was that this was by a country mile the worst gig any of us could remember.
I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to any of their stuff since.
Thanks for clearing up that mystery.
So THAT'S why Bobby didn't seem to know what song the band was playing when he attempted to warble; they were playing half a dozen of the buggers simultaneously!
Coldplay
...and the honesty of children.
Over here in the good old US of A - Coldplay were on Austin City Limits last night. They are one of the few bands that "we, as a family" can agree on. However after seeing Chris Martin "connect" with the music - my 12 yearold daughter was heard to say " you should dance like Hannah Montana or not at all"
Coldplay were joined by Michael Stripe for a couple of songs. The understated master showed Chris how to do it.
Clem Snide
Good on Record,Brilliant Live. They do lot's of mad cover versions. Seen them 6 times.They just get better and better.
The only band i've seen that Stank the place out live were Suede. Emperor's new clothes.
The Best was Rockabilly/Country singer Wayne Hancock.
Waste of Money
Dylan in Wembley about 1989, hoodie up no acknowledgement that people had forked out a fortune in money and time to see him.
So rubbish that the guy next to me who had seen him on every tour since the 60's didnt recognise Subterrean homesick Blues.
As I left we said "at least we have the records".
Wouldn't cross the road to see him for free.
Ditto Van Morrison. Finsbury Park 1990 Rubbish and disrespectful to fans.
David Sylvan recently in Dublin. Someone needs to give this guy a prod of laughing gas and a kick in the ass. A man who takes himself way too seriously. As the wife said "is it just me or is this just s**t? It was.
Dylan at Wembley Stadium, 1984
Your comment about the guy not recognising 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' reminded me of a very strange experience I had whilst watching Dylan at Wembley Stadium in 1984. It was the first time I'd seen him, I was 15. I was down the front, stood next to a long haired dude who must have been about 35, but seemed ancient to me. Said dude had a child's school lunchbox with him. Inside the lunchbox was his stash, neatly labelled in the different compartments... 'hash', 'speed', 'coke' etc. He delved into his goody bag with astonishing regularity throughout the gig, and proceded to get SO out of it. So out of it that he would shout out "Yeaahhhh! "Blowin' In The Wind!" and start to sing along, the trouble being that Dylan was playing "Like A Rolling Stone" or something else entirely. Towards the end of the gig, I heard him let out this long "Euuurrrrggghhh" noise, and he keeled forward, passed out on the ground. I remember leaving the stadium very late, and seeing his outstretched body still lying there. I'm sure he was OK, just a bit mashed.
Sounds like
the bearded Hell's Angel in this clip:
I haven't watched this because it's scary and nasty...
but that's one of the Hells Angels at Altamont, isn't it? He is one terrifying dude. My dude at the Dylan gig wasn't menacing, just mashed.
You're right
on all counts.
worst 3 live gigs ever!
Meatloaf 1978, i'm still trying to work out how on this good earth of ours did i get tricked into seeing this tub of lard.
Bob Dylan 1993, well Bob may well have been the great rock poet but live he stinks the place down!!!
Bob Dylan 2003, 10 years pass by and i thought i would give the legend that is Bob Dylan another go, yee gads he was worse than 1993, if such a thing was possible.