Entertainment For Lively Minds
Progressive encores
The dynamics of a progressive gig are generally fabulous; portentious opening with dry ice, flash solo in first number, later ensemble playing, the drum solo, and the long finale number that shows all to it's best, perhaps with further apt stage effects. One are where progressive gigs fail, I think, is in the encores. I can't think of a progressive gig where an encore has been as good as the foregoing. it's generally 'the popular one' and more a way to work the crowd DOWN from their adulation. Think about it, prog fans. It's always "Roundabout"; or "Rondo/ Fanfare" (previously "Pictures at an Exhibition"), or "I know what I like..." or "Run Like Hell"...
I think it's because an encore is antithetical to the spirit of progressive, which is ALL ENCORE, and a short finale after a finale naturally anticlimatic.
Massive?
- More from Vincent.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Y'see...
that's why I liked The Ramones. No flashy solos. No dry ice. Certainly no ensemble playing. Just a (1! 2! 3! 4!) barrage of rammalamma riffage that came at you like a (1! 2! 3! 4!)tank, songs short enough they'd fit between the (1! 2! 3! 4!)gaps in an ELP keyboard solo and up the road in time to catch News At 10 with Trevor McDonald. Gabba Gabba Hey.
Know what you mean, but...
I know what you mean, and Roundabout is a good example. Bit of an excuse to let the audience jump up and down and clap a bit, which tunes like Gates of Delirium or Close to the Edge don't lend themsevles to but disagree about the Floyd. A good end to the show.
Run Like Hell might be one of the popular ones but PF used to save up a lot of their best effects and explosions for it so it really was a fitting encore. And often combin3ed with Comfortably Numb. Who can forget the lasers going all round Wembley stadium at the start of it and the fireworks at the end? Or the Giant mirrorball at Earls Court?
Really what you want at the end of a show is a decent finale. If you save it for the encore then it is a bit presumptuous, if you don't then the encore is an anticlimax. Why go through the pretense of going off and coming back on?
Alternatively, throw them a curveball...
...equally brilliant to what has gone before, equally in the spirit of prog, yet not needing to share its dynamics...
I speak, of course, of getting your lead-guitarist to go out there and doff the band's communal cap to its loyal fans with a couple of Renaissance galliards on lute - as seen in this fine example featuring Jan Akkerman giving an encore at Focus' legendary 1973 show at the Rainbow: