Classic or dud: Bands that go on tour playing an old album in its entirety decades down the line

From the Interpol thread:

going to see them perform this album live in september , should be interesting .

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 4:06 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Could be a thread of its own, but has this always been a thing? Performing an old album in its entirety 20 or 30 years down the line? Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 4:10 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it started at ATP or Pitchfork Fest about a decade ago

― rock and roll tucci coo (voodoo chili), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 4:30 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 4:32 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This seems to be all the rage lately. U2's doing it right now (Joshua Tree), and there's loads of others revisiting an old album and touring with it. As noted above, it seems to me as giving up a bit. Granted, U2 can tour with anything and still sell out a tour - and they don't even need the money - but for a lot of others it seems cashing in in a way a new album or tour likely never would.

I've seen one of these last year, when Ash played '1977, 20th anniversary'. Couldn't fault them for doing this, as even they themselves seem to have given up on creating good, original music. As far as a nice trip down memory lane goes it was just that, and very enjoyable. But for others it seems like a creative death knell.

I've no problem with a band wanting to cash in, mind. But I can't quite see why bands would do this if they'd still feel like they have something to say, good music to make. Thoughts?

This is classic if I like the album and dud if I dislike the album.

i have never seen a band do this, but i rarely go to shows these days.

buuuut, i think it would be classic if the album was reinterpreted or visually presented in a really surprising way, like "here is a one-time alt version of the album that you have already heard a million times"

"it's Wonderwall--but fast!"

it would be fun if the performance was introduced with that exact quote

OR it's classic if you're an infamous recluse, like kate bush doing Hounds of Love

This is classic if I like the album and dud if I dislike the album.

― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 4:55 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol, I hear you, but not really though. I adore Turn On The Bright Lights but the idea of seeing them do this live *now* doesn't appeal to me at all. Like, get yers to the studio and make a decent album again ffs.

100% dud.

When once forward-looking bands reduce themselves to this kind of thing, you know it's over.

is Carlos D back in the band again

I have no interest in seeing bands do this personally but then I hardly see shows at all these days

(Interpol have always been shite though, IMO.)

(xxpost)

I saw Dinosaur Jr. do You're Living All Over Me in its entirety on the record's 25th anniversary, was a pretty great show.

I kinda like it because you at least get the opportunity to hear album tracks that would never get performed otherwise. How many bands doing this are we really expecting to still be active and creative?

Googling "perform their classic album" turns up a lot of questionably classic albums.

Maybe there's a difference between bands that have once broken up and are reunited/ressurected, and bands that never broke up and suddenly start doing this. I could give the former a pass, but it's a total dud if the latter does this imo. xxxp

My DVD of The Cure's Trilogy concerts is screaming Classic at me btw

nostalgia's a helluva drug

I kinda like it because you at least get the opportunity to hear album tracks that would never get performed otherwise. How many bands doing this are we really expecting to still be active and creative?

― frogbs, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 12:09 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that was certainly the only time that i will ever hear "Poledo" live in concert

The Who played Tommy on their 1989 tour, but only twice. And it being a reunion tour, there were no illusions re: anything new to say (even though they did a couple songs off Townshend's then-current solo record). The arrangements were vastly different from the album, largely owing to the 1989 band being 15 musicians instead of 4. Also, the arrangements were completely awful.

If Interpol did Meat Is Murder in its entirety it might be fun. That might actually be the only good idea Phish ever had. Doing someone else's album from start to finish. They should do that every night actually.

Would go see Dinosaur do a Wipers album or something like that.

I think it's cool as a special one-off, like when Cheap Trick played their first three albums here over three nights years ago, or some sort of unique come back, like Brian Wilson touring Pet Sounds. But once they do it again and again it's massively depressing.

Among the lamest was when I saw Weezer play their first two albums a few years ago. Both of them are short enough to fit on the same night but they still spread it out over two nights. I thought Jenny Lewis doing Rabbit Fur Coat was dumb. Who thinks of that album as a piece?

When I saw Midnight Oil a couple of months ago they played one of their best albums from start to finish with no warning. Had never done it before, might never do it again, night was not billed as such. They did it just for the heck of it. Which is cool.

I saw Roger Waters do The Wall, which was pretty boring. He has also toured Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety, too, but when I saw him last week he did most of that album anyway.

i'm sure i've seen more than one of these shows but i can only remember third eye blind playing their s/t album a few months ago. it ruled

Thunderous, awful dud, and I judge every band that does it.

as i discovered yesterday van morrison's astral weeks live album from 2009 is excellent (he fucked with the track order tho)

When these happen, do the bands tend kick off with the featured 45 minute of beloved tunes, close with them, or not even pad them out with other material?

It's interesting that these are seen somewhat distinct from just going out and playing the hits and three cuts off the latest disappointment. I'd think it would end up being a momentum killer in lots of way, not the least of which being that album sequencing doesn't always match live energy. But band enthusiasm obviously isn't the prime concern.

I saw Bang on a Can perform Eno's Music for Airports, it was totally pointless but kind of cool. Where do you all stand on bands covering someone else's album in its entirety?

When I saw Jesus and Mary Chain do Psychocandy, it was several minutes of best of, followed by the album.

Van Morrison and "excellent" don't belong in the same sentence, IMO.

oh wait now i remember, i saw trail of dead do source tags a few years ago. it was fine

lou reed was some kinda pioneer. watching him do new york was a snooze on that tour. he did do a second set of favorites thankfully. the feelies blew him off the stage though. something tells me the feelies probably do this now too.

When I saw Midnight Oil a couple of months ago they played one of their best albums from start to finish with no warning. Had never done it before, might never do it again, night was not billed as such. They did it just for the heck of it. Which is cool.

however this is otm - as a surprise, it's kind of a cool move - I can see how if the big hits were on other records, people might be bummed, but just save em for the encore. but PLAYING THE ALBUM IN ITS ENTIRETY I just loathe instinctively as a selling point

Are there examples of bands doing this with their more obscure or less-favoured albums?

i'm sure i've seen more than one of these shows but i can only remember third eye blind playing their s/t album a few months ago. it ruled

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 10:19 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can confirm

that midnight oil show sounds awesome. doing it unannounced is kind of an antidote to my big problem with this approach, which is that there's no surprise in the song selection

Ween did The Mollusk in full for its 20th anniversary and it fucking ruled

I think it's cool as a special one-off, like when Cheap Trick played their first three albums here over three nights years ago,

I was at the Heaven Tonight show at Metro, and it was amazing. Even though I knew what was coming next, it was surprisingly thrilling.

Ditto the Stevie Wonder Songs In The Key Of Life shows a couple years ago. It's not my favorite record of his classic era, but I couldn't sit down. Songs I didn't think much of -- "Contusion," for one -- completely killed.

Lou Reed's New York show was pretty snoozy -- scott otm. But Husker Du's Warehouse live demolished the studio record.

All that said, I hate when bands do this. I like being surprised at shows.

My DVD of The Cure's Trilogy concerts is screaming Classic at me btw

― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 5:12 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's interesting to hear the Bloodflowers line-up tackle some of the lesser-played tracks from Pornography ... but let's be honest, the band as a creative force slowed down to less than a crawl since those shows... they've only put out two albums since! Arguably, they were long past their peak by the time of Trilogy, with only the really dedicated still paying attention!

oh wait yeah, stevie doing songs in the key of life was fucking incredible

Pixies doing Doolittle was fun. The most amusing bit was doing the whole album, then doing all the b-sides from the singles, in the order of release.

That said I'm not a really big fan of this approach. I don't think there's a lot of shame in going on a backcatalogue tour. I guess it's an effective marketing gimmick because more bands seem to be doing it more often.

iirc he did the seven-inch songs in the middle which made the way it unfolded kinda surprising

xp

True, and he did this long solo on some strange stringed instrument that brought the house down. It felt like so much more than Stevie "just" playing the album; it was like he was playing it as much for people who hadn't heard it -- like he had something to prove -- as for people who knew it backwards and forwards.

^^ otm

Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

Simpler than that, it's a band saying we need the money.

Sometimes it's cool but mostly it's sort of lazy. A lot of these groups can just pass off the heavy lifting to a musical director, and more to the point, most albums aren't that long, let alone cohesive as albums. I think it's bad enough that setlists are increasingly predictable and, well, set these days. Speaking of Hukser Du, I saw Mould solo in April, and despite it just being him and a guitar with a catalog of dozens and dozens of songs, the setlist barely changed from night to night. Contrast that with Springsteen, who over the course of a tour might play 170 songs, some for the first time ever, some the same every night, but the setlist always changing, and there is no question the spontaneity makes a huge difference. Pearl Jam does this, too.

One thing I did like is when Wilco had a residency here a few years back, five nights, and played literally everything they had ever recorded, just totally out of order and over the course of those five nights.

this is cool if a band that like flaming lips did this with their older material. Their tours for years now have been so static with the exception of when they threw in "riding to work in the year 2025". Wayne told me back in the day that they saved their older/obscure stuff for radio shows.

Some of this is a reformed band just playing their classic material. It's a bit different for a long running band that never stopped to go back and play something out of their back catalog, some of which hadn't been played live in a long time or some tracks never had been played live. Yeah it's kind of a ploy to usually sell reissues and/or get lapsed fans to get back to a show, but if you are in a band that has lasted that long, it's a hustle to keep it moving. If it's a good show, it's a good show.

trying to remember if I've ever seen a band do this... generally though I think DUD because good album sequencing isn't necessarily good setlist sequencing.

Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

Simpler than that, it's a band saying we need the money.

― weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 12:39 PM (fifty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this literally the only good reason to reform a band, esp now that no one makes any royalties for back catalog thanks to spotify, no decent human being should have a problem w/it. it's a new era.

I am pretty sure when I saw Interpol the first time, behind the first album, they just played the album in its entirety anyway, just in a different order.

(xp) But but they might enjoy playing together... but, yes, the only way you can make any money out of it by ensuring as much people as possible come to your gigs - and Playing the Classic Album seems to work.

xp right, that's a common thing with bands that get big on their first record and aren't that prolific (Vampire Weekend did the same thing in 2008 and 2009).

I am pretty sure when I saw Interpol the first time, behind the first album, they just played the album in its entirety anyway, just in a different order.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 6:35 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha, they did! I saw them that time around too. They blasted through the 12 songs they had and that was it. Great show.

yea lol i think all they had in 2002 was the album + Specialist & Song Seven.

trying to remember if I've ever seen a band do this... generally though I think DUD because good album sequencing isn't necessarily good setlist sequencing.

― flappy bird, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 2:31 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so true

Coheed & Cambria's Neverender concert series started out as the band playing a four-night event, covering each of their first four albums in order, one per night. Their albums are parts of a concept/storyline, though, so it didn't seem weird. But the first Neverender was a really big deal, they sold out all three nights. They did it again a few years later, even after they'd released a few prequel albums, and now they do tours playing just In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 or whatever all the time. (That tour just about coincided with a vinyl reissue of the album, naturally.) They've just announced a tour for Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV Vol. 1 coming this or next year, no dates yet though.

tl;dr makes sense for concept albums

The Who played Tommy on their 1989 tour, but only twice. And it being a reunion tour, there were no illusions re: anything new to say (even though they did a couple songs off Townshend's then-current solo record). The arrangements were vastly different from the album, largely owing to the 1989 band being 15 musicians instead of 4. Also, the arrangements were completely awful.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 1:14 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yes. i used to have a VHS of that we would watch. its The Who On Ice.

i saw them do Quadraphenia in full sometime in the 90s. it was really cool.

Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

Yeah but it's so frequently true, so what is the harm in being honest about that? Does every frickin band need to come out and say "here's a new song" or "here's one from the new album" forever more?

Simpler than that, it's a band saying we need the money.

Again, that can also be true. And no shame in saying so (as ums notes). Professional musicians play music in front of people for money; that is kind of self-evidently true. And uncontroversial.

All that said, I had a pretty good time at the Elvis Costello "Imperial Bedroom tour" partly because he didn't just play the album in sequence - he played a bunch of other things too, and messed with the original arrangements a lot.

I think it's more to do with people's conception of themselves, like they for some reason NEED a band to have like 4 new songs they don't care about in the setlist, which they will ignore or politely tolerate or use as bathroom/beer breaks, because that way they aren't seeing a band for "nostalgia" which they actually are....even though I guess to me nostalgia is a perfectly good reason to see something if you want to

I have enjoyed shows where bands have done this a few times. I need to really love the album, though, and there are only a few bands that I thought released near perfect albums that have done this.

It is contextual, as well. A band resting on its laurels is never a good thing. However, if they are doing it because there's a desire to hear it live from their listeners, it can be a good thing. Changing things up after playing previous albums or sticking to one sound, then revisiting an album with a previous sound live, also shows a willingness to keep its members and fans engaged, instead of stagnating or overindulging themselves.

I think my vote goes to "Classic."

"nostalgia" as pejorative is such a weird cultural phenomenon. fucking 5 year olds are nostalgic, it's not some crime or incontrovertible evidence that you are (*gasp*) old or something.

Wish Lou Reed had had a chance to crank out Metal Machine Music live. I'd've paid.

Thunderous, awful dud, and I judge every band that does it.

100% agreement here. Would never pay for this. Can't believe anyone would.

Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

this is certainly putting it cynically. imo its kind of a damned if yo do damned if you don't thing. audiences demand the hits regardless and if you have any length to your career they expect you hit certain notes. i saw Paul McCartney a month ago and he joked about this. whenever he does a Beatles or Wings song it get a huge reaction. whenever he does a new song, what he into town, it's comparatively crickets.

i don't really get the "resting on your laurels" talk. the people wrote the song, they recorded it, it's not like when they write a new song the old song means less. it's still them doing it. who cares if they want to package a full album experience. shows are already great hits albums for the most part.

The ones I've seen have all been classic:
Lou Reed: Berlin
Gary Numan: Replicas / The Pleasure Principle
Buzzcocks: Another Music In A Different Kitchen / Love Bites
The Undertones: first album
John Martyn: Solid Air

Oh, and Brian Wilson: Pet Sounds (on its first tour).

> I think it's more to do with people's conception of themselves

Yeah, I find this really fascinating the more I dwell on it. There's the implication with the full album performances that they are a one-off opportunity, and both the artist and fans will resume producing and consuming the steady flow of revolutionary new rock 'n' roll come next tour.

at all these concerts, when they finish playing the album in full, they play a normal setlist afterwards.

it's not like you stop in to hear Pinkerton or whatever in full and then when the album ends you leave.

It robs the concert of spontaneity too - i like not knowing what song is coming next.

Swervedriver are doing a tour where they perform all of Raise and Mezcal Head. Seems fairly worthwhile.

Googling "perform their classic album" turns up a lot of questionably classic albums.

― jmm, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 1:10 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The "classic" part of classic album is relative also. I think it just needs to be a classic to your audience. I saw The Ocean Blue do one of these shows a few years back, and while I don't think very many people would consider the first 2 Ocean Blue albums "classics", they definitely were to the hometown crowd. I think this got popular after the ATP Festival came up with idea because it's just a good idea: supply meets demand.

trying to remember if I've ever seen a band do this... generally though I think DUD because good album sequencing isn't necessarily good setlist sequencing.

― flappy bird, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 2:31 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

trying to remember if I've ever seen a band do this... generally though I think DUD because good album sequencing isn't necessarily good setlist sequencing.

― flappy bird, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 2:31 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so true

I'm just as interested in setlist sequencing as album sequencing, and I always love observing and analyzing how bands put their sets together: how they'll take a song deep in side B and open with it. Also whatever they close with - gives me a new perspective on the songs and how they fit into the dynamic of the record and how the band perceives them.

Interpol for example - tours for the first two records, they frequently closed with Obstacle 2, which is the first song on side B of TOTBL.

Wish Lou Reed had had a chance to crank out Metal Machine Music live. I'd've paid.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/metal-machine-music-live-at-the-berlin-opera-house-mw0001989803

Thunderous, awful dud, and I judge every band that does it.

100% agreement here. Would never pay for this. Can't believe anyone would.

― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 2:32 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like really? You judge bands that do this? because why? what does it do? what does it erase that was good?

Always thought that was a band saying: we basically have given up on thinking we'll ever make anything nearly as good ever again.

well, honestly this is true for a lot of bands. it's a rarity to be able to continue a certain level of intensity for a long period of time. not saying it hasn't been done by many great bands and artists but i think that it's not the rule

but i'd be curious to hear my mans joanie loves chach, just seeing as how i know he's out there actually making his nut at the catalina wine mixer so to speak and not just talking on a message board

Like really? You judge bands that do this? because why? what does it do? what does it erase that was good?

An album is a work of art. A live show is, ideally, also a work of art, but of a very different kind. When you perform an album in full, attempting to mimic it as accurately as possible so that your audience doesn't have to risk thinking differently about your music and/or their relationship to it...you are sacrificing what's great about live music.

I love Iron Maiden. I've seen them six times since 2003. But I rarely listen to their studio albums, because they're incredible showmen, and the live experience is so much better. But if they toured playing an album front to back, I wouldn't go. It would diminish what is awesome about an Iron Maiden concert.

When you perform an album in full, attempting to mimic it as accurately as possible so that your audience doesn't have to risk thinking differently about your music and/or their relationship to it...you are sacrificing what's great about live music.

There is an assumption here about how a live show featuring an album front to back would go down that isn't valid.

Playing an album's songs live and in sequence, and recreating/mimicking that album are not the same thing.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/74a8f5209c5e0cfe60fcedd67fab5b21/tumblr_mjasb1Mqpl1rrr2r7o1_400.gif

me, Tarfumes

Do these tours commonly feature radical re-arrangements of the material, then? Is that what you're saying? 'Cause I kinda have my doubts. The only band currently doing full-album shows that I can easily picture changing the songs up in some starkly noticeable way is Steely Dan.

lol

xp

Oh yeah, I saw Steely Dan do The Royal Scam. Larry Carlton was there. Was just like the record.

I don't understand: so it's okay for a band to play songs from an album without radically rearranging them, but just not in sequence as they appear on the album?

so if, say U2 did all the songs off Joshua Tree (played exactly or closely like they are on the album) in the course of a 3 hour show that's fine, but if they do them as one block in the order of the album that's not okay and subverting the artform of recorded music?

just want to understand what incredibly thin hair we are splitting here.

Edge's last remaining one

I don't understand: so it's okay for a band to play songs from an album without radically rearranging them, but just not in sequence as they appear on the album?

so if, say U2 did all the songs off Joshua Tree (played exactly or closely like they are on the album) in the course of a 3 hour show that's fine, but if they do them as one block in the order of the album that's not okay and subverting the artform of recorded music?

just want to understand what incredibly thin hair we are splitting here.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. (Minus the part about ever going to see U2.) But this is purely my own opinion, you understand that, right? You are free to allocate your entertainment dollars any way you want.

Do these tours commonly feature radical re-arrangements of the material, then? Is that what you're saying? 'Cause I kinda have my doubts.

Some do, some don't. Rush doing Moving Pictures live was little more than hearing the album louder and outside, right down to every guitar solo and drum fill. And I assume U2 isn't seriously changing shit up for the current Joshua Tree tour (aside from lowering the keys of some songs, probably).

But Stevie Wonder doing SITKOL stuck to the record's arrangements, and yet handily transcended mimicry. It wasn't even just the unexpected moments that weren't on the record, either; the whole experience was something that couldn't be put down to "oh, I love this record, therefore, I love the concert." I wasn't a huge fan of the record, but the concert blew my mind (as mentioned upthread).

What I'm saying is that there is always going to be variation between a live version of a song and a recorded version due to the very nature of live music and the point of these types of shows is to recontextualize that recorded experience into a live setting, with the innate variation and different form of energy present in a live performance.

By this logic, one should never go see non-improvised classical music or opera, because everything is going to be played in a particular order following particular guidelines set down in the score and there's nothing of value to be gained from experiencing a live interpretation of the music.

Do these tours commonly feature radical re-arrangements of the material, then? Is that what you're saying? 'Cause I kinda have my doubts.

The one I saw, Ash doing '1977', certainly didn't feature re-arrangements. It was the album down to a tee. And that was completely fine! It's their best (and first) album, they made as teenagers, and 20 years later that's all the 35-40 year olds longed to hear, including me. They gave the audience what it wanted and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it.

oh wait i also saw the tragically hip do fully completely. it wasn't the best hip show i've ever seen, the inflexibility of playing an album front-to-back doesn't suit them bc their catalog is so huge and so i felt i was only getting this very narrow version of the hip, though it was cool to see "pigeon camera" live (which is one point in this approach's favor, underplayed or unplayed deep cuts get played)

R.E.M. we're the first I ever heard of to do it. last night of the Green tour was all of Murmur, then a break then all of Green then an encore of a coupla hits then VU's After Hours to close. they didn't tell anyone they were doing it though, so no one knew until it was happening.

this phenomenon is *extensively* covered in Reynolds' Retromania.

doing it unannounced would be pretty cool imo, realizing it 4-5 songs in

By this logic, one should never go see non-improvised classical music or opera, because everything is going to be played in a particular order following particular guidelines set down in the score and there's nothing of value to be gained from experiencing a live interpretation of the music.

I think I disagree with the analogy. Except maybe with some postwar integral serialist pieces, any score leaves significant room for interpretation, far more than a recording does. Besides, it's not like anyone can listen to a score. (And if your ears ARE that good, what you come up with will probably still be different from what Angela Hewitt comes up with, which will be different from Barenboim comes up with etc.) They are meant to be interpreted live. The same thing doesn't necessarily extend to The Joshua Tree.

sigh...

so, having my druthers, yeah it's more fun to hear a more 'randomized' setlist, but y'know, I got the chance to hear Mayhem do "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" and Cryptopsy do "None So Vile" front to back this year and damned if I will say it wasn't cool af (despite only one orig member of Cryptopsy being left). I'd see both bands even if they weren't in this format, too.

King Diamond's "Abigail" tour a few years ago was awe inspiring as well.

now, in the first two scenarios, they played only the album in question, which I'm not a huge fan of (I prefer the "play a set of other songs afterward" approach).

plus it can also be fun to buy a ticket to a show where a band that you hate is doing this and stand in the back and yell "THIS ALBUM ISN'T VERY GOOD" for the entire set

I think bands with multiple classics should merely advertise "we are playing our best album live" and watch as fans either react with excitement or disappointment when they launch into the first song

What about live albums performed live? I've found one so far:

http://do615.com/events/2011/10/22/peter-frampton-performs-frampton-comes-alive

hahaha

wondering if Cheap Trick recreates Live at Budokan

unperson did you judge Iron Maiden when they did that tour where they played only tracks off the 1st four albums?

Are there examples of bands doing this with their more obscure or less-favoured albums?

― jmm, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 12:24 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark

i saw the church play not one but THREE albums in their entirety -- their new one (which I hadn't heard, enjoyed hearing it live), priest = aura (a classic album that i wasn't super duper familiar with but enjoyed), and starfish (their biggest "hit" which was IMO super enjoyable to hear because i had never seen them play anything live and i love that band (this was before Marty left)

instead of doing CD release parties, bands should just play the new album in full at midnight

in general though i have little interest in this

what's weird are shows like the upcoming Soulfly tour where at some point in the middle, they're doing all of Nailbomb's "Point Blank", which only Max played on (and it was a two person project). like that's not somebody else's album since Max was on it, and yet the rest of his band has fuck-all to do with it either.

unperson did you judge Iron Maiden when they did that tour where they played only tracks off the 1st four albums?

No, because it wasn't a "play our first four albums front to back, in order of release" tour. It was a tour where they had 35 songs to choose from, from four albums, and they played between 10-17 of them. See the difference?

I did, however, think it was a really stupid idea for them to play A Matter of Life and Death in its entirety on tour, and I like that album a lot. (A lot of Maiden fans agreed. The tour was not well received.)

I think DJP does have a good point in that classical orchestras should be more like Phish

My ears are not attuned to classical performance. If I was a violin player, would different performances of the same piece sound significantly different?

It's amazing how many of these things I've seen. Sonic Youth, Green Day, Brian Wilson, Roger Waters, Steely Dan, Springsteen, Decemberists, Rush, the Who, Weezer, Zombies ... and I must be forgetting several.

with hardcore punk bands some of them can play their entire discographies in one show

When you perform an album in full, attempting to mimic it as accurately as possible so that your audience doesn't have to risk thinking differently about your music and/or their relationship to it...you are sacrificing what's great about live music.

what? this is absurd af. the audience will "risk thinking differently" simply by seeing a live performance. every live performance is unique. are you saying that live performaces of full albums are not unique? why would that be? that makes no sense. like, even with using backing tracks straight from the album, you are still getting a unique experience.

this is ridiculous. last bastion of late rockism.

what is the magical process where if the setlist is the same order as an album the performances are less authentic? this is bs.

pretty sure even at non-discography concerts nobody's doing zydeco versions of "Raining Blood", I mean other than tempo variance, vocal riffs, and little fills here and there, lots of bands tend to play the songs the way they wrote em.

what is the magical process where if the setlist is the same order as an album the performances are less authentic? this is bs.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, August 1, 2017 7:51 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not that it's inauthentic - i think bands should be able to do whatever they want - but imo it makes it kind of a boring show if you know what the setlist is going to be exactly before you even go. switching up the songs gives a new perspective on the record itself, it's an artistic opportunity

the knowing the setlist in advance is most of my problem with it. a lot of the fun of shows is the predicting. but then again I spoil setlists for myself with setlist.fm all the time.

but also non-"album in full" shows allow for creative pacing of the show, putting songs that aren't normally together together, etc.

exactly

A huge number of shows these days have set setlists.

Yeah but you the audience member don't know them coming in unless you spoil it for yourself. At a complete album show, you more or less do

My ears are not attuned to classical performance. If I was a violin player, would different performances of the same piece sound significantly different?

You play guitar iirc? Can you tell the differences between this, this, and this?

but i'd be curious to hear my mans joanie loves chach, just seeing as how i know he's out there actually making his nut at the catalina wine mixer so to speak and not just talking on a message board

well here's the deal. like, it's the case that as you go along, you get the songs the audience pops for, and they wanna hear a good number of those. the more popular your band, the more of these songs there are, and imo you're kind of being a dick if you don't give 'em a good handful of these -- at the very least in the encore, and more likely you close out the set with a couple of proper "now THIS is the joan crawford I put down good money for" numbers and then if you get an encore you load up on the rest of those tunes, or most of 'em, and really show 'em how much you appreciate...

...that they were also there for you earlier in the evening, when you were still trying to grow as a musician/band in front of an audience. which is the lifeblood of performance in my opinion, and is what makes concerts worthwhile and vital. some element of risk, some room for discovery, an openness to new things. this is an idea I'm 100% certain I inherit from jazz; my father plays jazz piano and while he doesn't hold forth about the importance of improvisation, my early exposure to jazz certainly left me thinking, believing: "music is best when there's the possibility that something happens that hasn't ever happened before." now, that possibility's certainly present even when you're playing your big hits, the ones you've played literally hundreds of times -- this year alone I've had a moment or two during the better-known numbers where I said, whoa, didn't think that song had any new places to go but tonight it was special, did you feel that? and we all nod at each other afterwards in post-game...

...but that's rare. I enjoy playing the big hits, seeing people get happy about them, giving people exactly what they wanted. but I can only really enjoy that if I'm also being true to the spirit that made me wanna play music in the first place, which is a restless, curious, exploratory feeling that is always disappointed in the wholly-known-quantity. this isn't an absolute value in music; I listen to classical music, and attend classical concerts, certainly it'd be p weird if the orchestra said "well we're not gonna play the third movement, everybody knows the third movement of this one, let's do Boston's 'Don't Look Back' instead." But we're talking about rock music here, for the most part, and, for me, when rock music seeks comfort in the known, it's much less interesting, and it's hard for me to believe the musicians are really going "fuck yes - I get to play this music I wrote a long time ago, and nothing else." like I can't relate to that AT ALL, even though, premiering new songs this year that are much more complex than any songs I've written before, we fell right on our faces many times! the songs were hard to play, I still haven't memorized a bunch of them because this time around I wrote shit that had way too many chords & modulations! and the crowd was generous, but I didn't get the big burst of FUCK YES YOU KICK ASS from playing those songs...

...and that's very healthy for me as an artist, to always have that risk. and if I go see a show, I enjoy it more if I get the sense that the artists I'm watching are at least open to that sort of mood. I don't crave newness in all things, but I do want growth, curiosity, the sense that we all might go someplace new together.

as you might imagine I could talk about this kinda thing a lot, I think about it all the time.

everybody knows the third movement of this one, let's do Boston's 'Don't Look Back' instead

\m/

fuckin bernard haitink

Sparks did a classic-not-dud thing:

May and June 2008 saw the 21-night "Sparks Spectacular" in London, where they played each of their albums in chronological order during the first twenty nights, and premiered their new album on the twenty-first concert on June 13, 2008.[25] Each night, they performed an album in its entirety followed by a rare track – many of the songs had never been performed live before. The band asked their fans to visit their website and vote for the track that they'd most like to hear the band perform during the second half of the 21st concert after the premiere of Exotic Creatures of the Deep, though Russell admitted that he and Ron would probably influence the poll a little.

with the exception of those p4k fest sets from like a decade ago and maybe stevie when he did songs in the key of life, bands that play their whole album in full continue with their set and play other songs. i would indeed object if the band just played 40 minutes or whatever of an album and then stopped, but that is almost never what happens. it's just a fun framing device to get people in the door. i am grateful, for example, that i got to see Steely Dan play Gaucho all the way through. i bought the tickets so i could see them play glamour profession, and third world man, and the title track, songs which i would almost definitely never hear them play otherwise. after they finished playing Gaucho, they moved onto kid charlemagne and aja and reelin in the years and whatever.

i don't know i saw john cale doing a rearrangement of the first velvet underground album and i kind of liked it better the first time.

on the other hand that monthlong residency where sparks played every single one of their albums in its entirety in consecutive shows is one of the high points of... something. (xxp!)

when i saw magma they did mekanik destruktiw kommandoh live in its entirety but that's not exactly a rare thing for them

When I saw Sonic Youth play Daydream Nation it was wonderful, then they "encored" with a full-length set consisting of nearly all of Rather Ripped plus whatever other older tracks. Maybe I got lucky but hard to dislike a show like that, imo. Also DJP otm re: playing an album live.

saw The Chachis play three new songs a few months ago and wanted more, Joan applauded us for singing along with a song nobody had heard before

anyway this is classic as a hook for bands who need a hook to sell tickets on, more classic if they do something more than just playing an album's songs in the same order as on the record, dud in practice mostly I'm sure.

They Might Be Giants might have been the progenitors of this: alongside churning out about 60 completed pieces of music most years and touring regularly, They started doing "Flood shows," advertised and sold as such, back in the '90s. So much that they got bored of it - Trayce saw them circa 2002 in Melbourne playing a second night in Melbourne, where they surprise-opened with the Flood album in order to muted reception, having not advertised it; I saw them in 2013 doing a Flood show, where they played the album in REVERSE order. They also do shows of the - I think - first two albums together, these days.

Saw Brian Wilson, on consecutive nights, doing Pet Sounds with a huge band that makes him happy, when he never toured this material at the time; and performing an entirely new, as yet unreleased album (That Lucky Old Sun). On these occasions, the greatest hits set that followed the album was probably far more rote than the hook of the show.

Pixies performing Doolittle was the only one of these I've seen that was an empty dopamine hit: nice to hear all those songs from my favourite Pixies record, but it was obviously beyond rote for a band only in it for the money. Kim announcing when they started the album, when the first song from the second side was, now we're playing some b-sides etc.

Enjoyed seeing the Last Splash line-up of The Breeders play Last Splash in America in 2013; outweighed by missing them play five mins from my house months later, when they'd gotten so bored of playing the album in full that they'd since also learnt the entire first album and were playing it as a surprise encore.

On that note: skipped Billy Bragg at a club in 2008 because I was going to see him at a festival the next day. Arrived at the festival to find that Tom Morello had swapped places with Bragg, in order to space out his solo set further from RATM's headlining slot. This meant that Bragg was now clashing with Lady Saw, so I skipped him again. But it turned out that the club show had gone so well, he'd played two encores, been so energised that he didn't want to stop, so had run back on and played his entire first album AS A SURPRISE THIRD ENCORE.

The Church have done that three-full-albums thing La Lechera saw a few times, which is a cool way to approach it - hear our entire new stuff, hear a "classic", hear one that we like a lot but don't play much, so we get a chance to revisit and rework and fiddle with it. (I also saw the first show they played with Powderfinger blokey replacing Marty Willson-Piper, where they played the new album plus one other song, bcz new guy didn't know anything else yet.)

The Cure playing their first three albums in full at the Sydney Opera House was great; they were arranged for 40-years-older players, and they used a larger line-up on each successive album, going from a trio to a quintet by bringing back an acrimoniously-fired past member on each return to the stage. Plus I went on the second night, when Robert had read internet complaints that they'd skipped the minute-long secret joke track at the end of the first album, and learnt it to play solo before leaving the stage.

i used to like seeing a band do a song that wasn't even done yet. or it didn't even have a title. or one that would end up with different lyics. i liked that whole "this is the first time we're trying this so it might be a little rough..." kinda thing. and then hearing their next album or seeing them later and hearing what it became.

mention of daydream nation reminded me of that. i remember seeing SY in NYC before they recorded DN and the songs were - obviously - unknown to me and even sounded kinda unfinished and when i heard the album and saw them again a year later or whenever the songs had become something else.

i kinda miss that. i don't really follow any bands closely enough now to notice those kinds of things. it was fun to see the process evolve live. which is kind of the opposite of what this thread is about.

xp@me -- oh and! after playing three albums in full, they encored by playing every non-album single, every b-side, and every compilation-only track from the era for the first two encores, they then played the three Japanese Whispers-era A-sides as a third. That's value for money.

(youtube tells me I misremembered The Weedy Burton, it was a full band)

seeing todd rundgren do a wizard a true star with multiple costume changes and shit was awesome

Primal Scream doing the Screamadelica 20th anniversary shows rearranged the songs and order into a flowing, vibrant show instead of a collection of tracks.

Spiritualized doing Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space is a clash between the "classical" and "rock & roll" approach - it's written as a coherent suite of songs with a specific musical approach, so can be performed and interpreted as a written work -- but like a gigging musician with pick-up bands, they turn up and play with choirs and string sections who've had one or two run-throughs with charts a day before.

saw a poster on the weekend for a terrible Australian musician doing a two-night stand: one where he plays his 1992 hit debut album in full, one where he plays a greatest hits set. fucking hell man, pick one lame cash-in at a time, leave something for 2019.

funniest version of this was GZA's "Liquid Swords" tour of 2012, which was supposed to be that album in full, but....wasn't. He not only didn't do the songs in order, he interspersed other album tracks in between and then didn't even do the entire album, just most of it. nobody really cared, but it was funny

I saw Meat Puppets II and Built To Spill "Perfect From Now On" within the same show in 2008 and it was cool. It wasn't so bad in the late 2000s when it didn't happen as often and seemed like a passing fad.

Swirlies "Blonder Tongue Audio Baton" show was a pretty special one.

oh and I saw Blind Guardian's Imaginations from the other Side last year (wow, a lot of those in one year) - and considering that I'd never heard a single SONG from that album live other than "Bright Eyes" previously, it was damn cool.

Some band should do a tour where they play their double live album all the way through with stage banter and drum solos and everything.

Metallica should recreate the infamous Montreal show of 1992 except instead of Jame's hand should just burn Lars alive

Oh yea I like that idea. Re-creating the great setlists of yore, and the band members have to consume the exact amount of drugs and alcohol as on those fateful evenings 30+ years ago.

Fateful referring to faking previous stage injuries

what if some of the former band members are dead

lmfaooooooo

There's always this - a live cover of a live album by another artist - checks all the boxes:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0709/2227/products/602517516724-Cvr_large.jpg

Paul Stanley does "Having Fun On Stage With Stanley" in its entirety.

Slayer's "KISS Alive"

This is classic if I like the album it's a good live act and dud if I dislike the album it's not

bands can do whatever they want, and obv promising to play popular songs is a good selling point, the sequencing might even be pretty thought through

what can be slightly off-putting abt the concept is perhaps the similarities it shares with a conception of live music as something that mimics studio recordings - which, to a point, it of course is, but it's also always damning with faint praise when one of your friends says that "it sounded just like the record!"

it's hard for me to believe the musicians are really going "fuck yes - I get to play this music I wrote a long time ago, and nothing else."

There's that, unless they can do something interesting with it, as has already been discussed. I have most problems with the reverential, classical recital aspects of We Are Now Going to Play This Important Piece of Art, that makes me squirm a little bit, though I have had problems for years approaching rock gigs with the appropriate level of earnestness. I think I saw Arthur Lee do Forever Changes, I don't know if he did the whole album or not, but it was Arthur Lee so you had no idea if you'd ever see him again and I doubt many people in the audience did.

Bragg was now clashing with Lady Saw

now there's something I'd have liked to see

Booming post Joan C. I feel that inherent curiosity and having the risk of something beautiful or out of the blue happening, like with your Chachis, is integral to my own enjoyment of a concert.

Classical orchestras wouldn't seem so coalition if they were called "cover bands."

Coalition?

Hifalutin.

Stupid autocorrect.

Feel like this trend totally depends on how much effort the band put into it. TMBG doing Flood was excellent. They messed with some songs, and they tend to play several obscure tracks each show, so it felt natural to play the whole album. plus, the album is so short that it was only about a third of the set.

Whereas Devo doing Freedom of Choice a few years back was terrible. The album was the whole show, and some songs seemed like a total chore for them to play through. they had more fun during the couple non-FoC tracks for the encore

i saw leftfield this weekend performing 'leftism'.

extending the classics, and adding a whole layer of live instrumentation to the albums electronica sheen, the end result was an absolutely brilliant show.

Tindersticks did this with their second album when they were (and knew they were) on the verge of breaking up. It was a kind of farewell to the original line-up of the band, although the audience didn't know it at the time. Wish I'd been there.

who are the chachis?

Metallica should recreate the infamous Montreal show of 1992 except instead of Jame's hand should just burn Lars alive

― Neanderthal, Tuesday, August 1, 2017 11:56 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lars is the only cool person in metal

A good one for "post a controversial opinion," I guess.

Rolling Stones should recreate Altamont, but this time kill a white dude

should start shouting 'JUDAS' at Dylan at every show

This isn't folk!!

And dramatically cut the power cables leading to the PA. Yes, please do this.

You play guitar iirc? Can you tell the differences between this, this, and this?

I get this, for solo guitar, but what about an orchestra? If I saw Beethoven's 9th three times in a row, could I really tell the difference? I dunno. I guess it depends how closely I am paying attention.

I'm definitely a fan of bands covering other bands' albums. I think that gets some pretty neat results.

It's a different discussion, I think, but I've always wondered about legacy artist relationships with warhorses. Like, Springsteen, for example, it seems impossible that he could still be excited about playing some of his songs, but he does play them, and seems really excited. Now, is he ... acting? Is he pretending to like them? Or once he gets going does he get legit excited? Can he fake the sort of passion people respond to?

I talked to Patterson Hood from the Drive By Truckers once, and he explained to me that he has a couple of go-to songs he knows will pump himself up, so if he's starting with one of those you know he's a bit off or under the weather or whatever, and he's leading with them to jump start to set, after which everything (hopefully) locks back into place.

Lars was a super fun interview, he's really charming and intelligent and enthusiastic. I like his puckish nature. I think it's funny metal fans hate him so much, when there are so many dumb booger eaters like the dudes in Slayer that are as interesting as a snubbed out joint.

lol Mencap, me too

your point is noted, I disagree, moving on xpost

(not disagreeing that Slayer are dim bulbs what w/ the Araya snowflake moment, but that isn't exactly a guarded secret)

The only member of Metallica I've ever interviewed was Kirk, who was nice but as bland as bland can be. I would love to talk to Lars.

and it's hard for me to believe the musicians are really going "fuck yes - I get to play this music I wrote a long time ago, and nothing else."

I agree, I don't think the musicians are thinking that; but they may be thinking, "Fuck yes, I get to play this music I wrote a long time ago that, somehow, still knocks audiences out every time," e.g., "I wrote 'Pinball Wizard' as a joke just to get a good review, and 48 years later 10,000+ people lose their shit every night as soon as I hit the opening chord."

Feel like this trend totally depends on how much effort the band put into it. TMBG doing Flood was excellent. They messed with some songs, and they tend to play several obscure tracks each show, so it felt natural to play the whole album. plus, the album is so short that it was only about a third of the set

yea TMBG are a great example of a band this works great for, they have such a humongous catalogue and a lot of their fans tend to get hung up on weirdo album tracks that otherwise you'd never hear. they did a show where they played the first album which meant getting to hear "Absolutely Bill's Mood", "Rhythm Section Want Ad", "Rabid Child", etc

saw young marble giants perform colossal youth at an atp on a lovely sunday afternoon
it was one of my favourite shows i've ever seen

and it's hard for me to believe the musicians are really going "fuck yes - I get to play this music I wrote a long time ago, and nothing else."

This is where my primary performance outlet as a church chorister is greatly influencing how I view this issue because almost by definition, I find a lot of repetition in what I sing as a rule; for example, it is guaranteed that I will sing the following songs every year unless I leave this group:

"Alleluia" - Randall Thompson
"Swell, The Full Chorus" - Georg Friedrich Handel
"Amen" - spiritual

an assortment of hymns too numerous to list that includes "Be Thou My Vision", "Now the Green Blade Rises", "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence", "The Call" (Come My Way, My Truth, My Light), "Amazing Grace", "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", etc etc etc

When I was singing with the chorus of the BSO, we did Beethoven's 9th every year to end the summer season out at Tanglewood.

Repetition is built into the DNA of my performance life so I don't see it as a barrier to a thrilling, enjoyable performance, nor do I view revisiting pieces I've already done as boring hackwork. It is awesome and fun to learn and sing new things; it is also awesome and fun to go back to old favorites and learn new things about them and/or share them with an audience that may not be as familiar with them as you are. Maybe it's weird that this attitude bleeds into my engagement with rock music but that's where I'm coming from.

I love how all is cubicle schlubs need to be interested in the idea that a bunch of bands are so sad and filled with ennui getting paid a ton of dough to have thousands of ppl adore their music because it's so repetitive and boring, now excuse me I've got to finish entering my July billable hours on QuickBooks

This is classic if I like the album and dud if I dislike the album.

― this iphone speaks many languages (DJP), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:55 (yesterday) Permalink

Probably could have locked thread after this post.

Bands should do whatever the fuck they want. And get paid.

W/r/t to the idea of its "boring to play the same old songs" I remember an interview with Bun E Carlos when Cheap Trick was doing those runs playing the first three records and he said it wasn't hard playing "Surrender" night after night cuz it's a great song, it was actually harder for him playing older songs that they stopped playing yrs ago.

Going back to my question about acting, I was thinking about certain Broadway shows, where the cast is required to perform the same exact way, again and again, standing in the same spots, delivering lines the same way, more or less. How different is that from many big name arena rock performances, really? Or a band doing its best or most popular album start to finish? Do we expect improvisation and spontaneity from live music, or do we just associate it with it? Songs, arrangements - most bands don't deviate from the record; in fact, many try to get as close as possible. Very few acts totally improvise (Autechre?), anything at an arena level with lights/lasers/fire, if not any venue over, say, a capacity of 500, is probably massively constricted. Like, I saw Roger Waters the other day, and there is no way a single minute of that show is different from any other given night of that show, but I saw Ty Segall a few weeks before that, and even his setlists have not been varying much from night to night. The lack of surprise from bands playing an album start to finish seems lame, but it's very, very rare that a band surprises me live anyway.

Repetition is built into the DNA of my performance life so I don't see it as a barrier to a thrilling, enjoyable performance, nor do I view revisiting pieces I've already done as boring hackwork.

Some years ago, I worked briefly on a tour by the live cover of a live album by another artist mentioned upthread. I was working for the opening band, and every night, everything was the same -- same setlist, same fills, same stage patter, hardly any noticeable variation whatsoever (ditto the headliner, only slightly less so). I mentioned this to my friend who was working the same tour, saying that it must be boring for the musicians to do the same thing the same way every night. She had a different angle on it, though: if you play in, say, the pit band of a musical, there's always the thrill of the overture, there's the song or songs coming up where you think, yeah, this is the fun part of the show, and, hoo boy, the finale is always a blast to play.

(And I should note that both opener and headliner brought it every night; if they were bored, they hid it extremely well.)

yeah DJP I know where you're coming from & it's a solid position! as I say, I think my thoughts are connected to my earliest understandings of music as a collaborative effort by musicians playing together with room for improvisation & with improvisation as an affirmative value. it's hard for me to imagine, say, Miles going out on a "plays Kind of Blue in sequence!" tour - his whole growth arc was "try not to do what you've already done," and that was true of so many of the giants. so this informs my reaction - I say "reaction" rather than "thinking," my feeling here is pretty gut-level, it doesn't originate in "let's think this through"

underworld toured on dubnobasswithmyheadman a couple years back but iirc it wasn't the whole album, nor was it in sequence. it was basically the usual hits plus a couple of the album cuts, mixed in with others from their catalog.

i enjoyed the U2 show i was at several months back (disclaimer: i like U2), but i wonder if it was being used to drum up some interest in them a bit among the fair-weather set after the Songs of Innocence misfire.

I saw Echo and the Funnymen perform Ocean Rain in full a few years ago as well. It was enjoyable!

ugh

see it was just too bad that noted prankster comedy cover band Echo and the Funnymen were the ones performing it

has U2 played anything from side 2 of the Joshua Tree live in the past 25 years? i guess that'd be interesting and a little out of the ordinary.

excuse me I've got to finish entering my July billable hours on QuickBooks

shit, thx for the reminder

In short, it comes down to what the artist is getting out of it, and can bring new to the table. Artistically speaking, if the music itself can come alive again, in a new time with new people = classic. If it's a cash-in = dud.

I got to work on a project like this a few years back -- in this case, the artist was only willing to do this because all of us were much younger than him, and he thought we'd bring something new to the music. AND ha hadn't played the record live EVER. In his case, I doubt it was about the money, because a) he already plays actual new music at various festivals all over the world all the time, and b) he could have done this whenever he wanted to, and didn't, even when it had been proposed to him.

yeah DJP I know where you're coming from & it's a solid position! as I say, I think my thoughts are connected to my earliest understandings of music as a collaborative effort by musicians playing together with room for improvisation & with improvisation as an affirmative value. it's hard for me to imagine, say, Miles going out on a "plays Kind of Blue in sequence!" tour - his whole growth arc was "try not to do what you've already done," and that was true of so many of the giants. so this informs my reaction - I say "reaction" rather than "thinking," my feeling here is pretty gut-level, it doesn't originate in "let's think this through"

That is a specific form of music-making, though. I would not expect something heavily informed by a jazz or gospel tradition to follow the exact same format across performances or in transition from record to live show because that's directly inimical to the way the music is created; I don't think U2 spontaneously jammed the songs that ended up on The Joshua Tree (and if they did, god have mercy on them because any jam session that results in the second half of The Joshua Tree must be shunned mercilessly by all of the good, righteous people), so it seems odd to denigrate their choice to perform the entire album front to back on that metric. It would be like criticizing Run-DMC for not being in tune on "It's Tricky"; it reads to me as a criticism that is fundamentally not about what the band is actually doing.

The big problem I have with "U2 performs The Joshua Tree" is that all of the songs I care about would happen in the first 20 minutes and then the rest of the evening would be a drawn out, boring slog; it has nothing to do with predictability for me. I can't stand the second half of that album and I would not pay all of that money for a ticket to a U2 concert to sit through it. Conversely, The Cure did a TIB/SS/Faith set of shows and a Pornography/Disintegration/Bloodflowers set of shows and I would have paid a ludicrous amount of money to get to them if it had been even remotely feasible because I like all of those albums and I haven't heard them play all of those songs live.

So yeah, I stand by my original post: This is classic if I like the album and dud if I dislike the album.

i enjoyed the U2 show i was at several months back (disclaimer: i like U2), but i wonder if it was being used to drum up some interest in them a bit among the fair-weather set after the Songs of Innocence misfire.

I talked about this on the U2 thread, no doubt, but this isn't entirely fair. To the band's credit, the J. Tree redux tour was its first ever strictly nostalgia tour. Even the Songs of Innocence "misfire" begat a sold-out multi-night stand arena tour that drew heavily from (like, they played most/much of) that album. The Joshua Tree 2 tour was an artistic misfire, imo - caveat: I'm sure it was fun and I know it was successful - because counter to the band's message that it feels as contemporary as ever I think that album does not particularly resonate as much more than nostalgia (that is, per Dan, its hits).

Has U2 dug deep into that disc as of late, pre tour? Not particularly, no more so than most bands with tons of hits can afford to go terribly deep into their catalog at the expense of the stuff people want to hear. Like, I saw a Stones show a while back, and it felt like a hits show, and it more or less was. But I know the publicist pointed out how maybe at least a third of the show was totally different from the night before. They just have a lot of hits! Same with U2 (to a slightly lesser extent).

That said, U2 is the perfect example of a band with no flexibility to shake things up from night to night. Album in its entirety or not, you're only going to get a couple of different songs from night to night, max. The rest I reckon is pretty static, by design and necessity.

From the audience end, though, why are these tours a selling point? Especially in the case of the more successful bands that will tend to incorporate the crowd pleasers anyways- U2 is always going to play the key Joshua Tree cuts, right?

Another angle does seem to be hitting a cross-generational thing: Joshua Tree/Doolittle/Daydream Nation came out when you were a tot, and now here's your chance to hear it like you were there in '89.

i guess hitting the Indian casinos and playing your big album for old fans is a step up from hitting the county fair circuit and playing nothing but hits. though i do think it will be kinda fun if someday Blink 182 and Arcade Fire take the place of The Coasters and Blackfoot at the county fair. i would totally go see Blackfoot at the county fair right now...

Grand Funk AND Smash Mouth are playing the Big E this year where I live. And Night Ranger. Gotta have Night Ranger.

http://www.thebige.com/p/entertainment/concerts/xfinityarena

kinda the best lineup ever on the other stage at the Big E. Sugarhill Gang AND Ten Years After. they know this dad rocker...

http://www.thebige.com/p/entertainment/concerts/courtofhonor

someday Blink 182 and Arcade Fire take the place of The Coasters and Blackfoot at the county fair

of course this is going to happen

Count Basie's orchestra played at Disneyland in its later years

it's the fate of 99% of successful musicians to get shunted to these venues (if they're lucky and they last that long!)

http://www.theonion.com/article/pathetic-washed-up-rock-star-on-fifth-decade-of-do-37299

the other night when that sad sack axl rose was hauling his old ass through another set at u.s. bank stadium (home of the minnesota vikings) i was watching heathers on netflix and looking for junk removal groupons on my phone, that poor chump

heathers>>>>axl rose's entire existence

i think its fine to play anywhere that anyone will pay you to play! except for sun city. i just like the idea of seeing the changing of the county fair guard. which has already happened obviously. what with fastball sharing the same stage as the village people. looking forward to the county fair tradition of it being just one cousin of a guy from fastball and a couple of ringers too.

Grand Funk AND Smash Mouth are playing the Big E this year where I live. And Night Ranger. Gotta have Night Ranger.

http://www.thebige.com/p/entertainment/concerts/xfinityarena

― scott seward, Wednesday, August 2, 2017 3:33 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, but present-day Grand Funk is without Mark Farner. The lyrics may still be wild, but they are no longer shirtless.

wishbone ash played near me not long ago and i think it was just one original guy. one of the guitarists.

Count Basie's orchestra played at Disneyland in its later years

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 2, 2017 3:37 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're still going strong!

https://www.thecountbasieorchestra.com/

even vanilla fudge has three of the four original members. i think.

ok sure but I meant when Basie was still alive. I think that might have been during Fred Wesley's brief tenure w Basie too, I can't remember from his autobio

xp

So in this case, the young guy is the ringer, right?

http://www.thebige.com/events/2017/ten-years-after

i saw the count basie orchestra in the 80s. they had a guy who sounded like joe williams but who wasn't joe williams. they were great. i got to meet tom harrell. he wasn't easy to talk to. but very nice. he wasn't that well known back then.

My favorite is the current lineup of Dr. Feelgood: no original members, despite the fact that three of the original four are still alive.

ok sure but I meant when Basie was still alive. I think that might have been during Fred Wesley's brief tenure w Basie too, I can't remember from his autobio

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, August 2, 2017 4:05 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wow, had no idea Wesley played with Basie! I was lucky enough to see Basie in early 1983, about a year before he died...I'm wondering if Fred was in the lineup I saw.

the young guy in ten years after should just change his name to alvin lee. also i wonder if chick churchill gets to do any songs from his one 70s solo album now that alvin is gone.

They should've gotten Albert Lee to replace Alvin Lee.

I will check when I get home but my memory from "Hit Me, Fred!" is that yeah he had a brief stint with Basie during his post-P-Funk, coked up and bottomed out period (cuz, y'know, he had always really wanted to be a legit jazz dude)

I want to say at one point one of the touring versions of the Zombies actually featured a replacement with the name of one of the original Zombies.

when i saw the pretty things their manager had to play drums. the drummer couldn't get into the country for some reason. i was kinda hoping they would just play sf sorrow and parachute from start to finish.

wiki says he joined in '78, which would've been right around when he left P-Funk

xp

Maybe someday a no-original-member lineup of Jute Gyte will perform Ship Of Theseus in it's entirety to a crowd of well tattooed vegan organic farmers in Western Mass.

my kid is going to see D.R.I. tonight. they could play the Dirty Rotten EP and their first three albums in one set.

I want to say at one point one of the touring versions of the Zombies actually featured a replacement with the name of one of the original Zombies.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, August 2, 2017 4:14 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep!

The original line-up declined to regroup for concerts following the belated American success of "Time of the Season". In turn, various concocted bands tried to capitalise on the success and falsely toured under the band's name. In a scheme organized by Delta Promotions, an agency that also created fake touring versions of The Animals and The Archies, two fake-Zombies were touring simultaneously in 1969, one hailing from Texas, the other from Michigan.[17] The Texas group featured bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard, soon to be members of ZZ Top.[17] Another group toured in 1988, going so far as to trademark the group's name (since the band had let the mark lapse) and recruit a bass guitarist named Ronald Hugh Grundy, claiming that original drummer Hugh Grundy had switched instruments.[18]

damn, now i want to hear the zz top zombies....

zzombies

Let's go back to the original thread premise and look at one of the hottest artists out there right now: Kendrick Lamar.

Kendrick has released three albums that feature a tightly-structured narrative flow from start to finish. GKMC was conceived as an audio movie and has a fully-realized storyline in its presentation. TPAB is a more abstract narrative, but a narrative nonetheless, complete with a linking rhetorical device in the form of the start-stop reveal of the poem that gives the album its name. DAMN is the least narrative of the three but still has themes that pass through songs and gain greater resonance as the album progresses; it also does the same rewind-to-the-beginning trick at GKMC but also has the narrative trick of building and exploring the themes in a wholly different way if you play the tracks on the album in reverse order.

So, the sequencing of songs on all three of these albums are strongly tied to how they are intended to be consumed and the artistic framework underpinning the three albums; if Kendrick chose to do shows where he did any one of these albums in sequence, in it entirety, would that be de facto a dud concert because it's "lazy" and "boring", even though the importance of the song order on the album is part of what makes what he puts out uniquely him? I don't think it would; in fact, I think it would make a ton of sense and any one of those albums done as a front-to-back live show could bring the entire house down.

that reminds me, I would probably enjoy a concert of Ice Cube doing "Death Certificate". (He could skip Black Korea, since that's what I always do)

Jason Pierce of Spiritualized said something about this in a new interview at tQ today (turned down reuniting Spacemen 3, did play Ladies and Gentlemen anniversary shows):

Looking to the past, Pierce revealed last year that he was offered millions to reform his first band, Spacemen 3. I ask him if looking back to the earlier work of Spiritualized in this anniversary year ever makes him want to revisit his earlier work with Spacemen 3, a band whose work is still seen as pioneering, or if the idea is too painful based on the acrimonious way the band ended. “There’s no pain involved, it’s just that I don’t see the point of playing through the things I played when I was 19 or 20, you know?”

“I’m just not interested. It’s a musical [rather than money] thing. I don’t want to go over old ground. And even doing Ladies And Gentlemen shows, it wasn’t like we were just doing that – there was something about getting in touch with that and playing it in a way that we could never play it before. It’s a good two thirds of a record we’d never played live. These shows were looking to the future.”

“Music shows aren’t about presenting the new, they’re about going out and playing all your old songs. In certain cases, people don’t even want to hear the new stuff. I started doing these Ladies And Gentlemen shows as a way of saying, ‘Look, we can do this, and if it doesn’t work, it fails in a nice, glorious way’ – there’s something really beautiful about that as well. As to going over old ground for old ground’s sake, I don’t see any purpose in that. We’re trying to say, look we can do these [anniversary] shows and hopefully somewhere further down the line, we’ll do some around a whole set of new songs as well.

“I’m just not interested. It’s a musical [rather than money] thing. I don’t want to go over old ground. And even doing Ladies And Gentlemen shows, it wasn’t like we were just doing that – there was something about getting in touch with that and playing it in a way that we could never play it before. It’s a good two thirds of a record we’d never played live. These shows were looking to the future.”

this actually means absolutely nothing but Jason Spaceman views his own motives in the most pure light and others' motivations in the worst light

I don't think that's true at all. I can totally see what he means by playing a record 20 years down the line in a completely new way.

nah m@tt OTM

i mean maybe he's right, but a lot of bands might feel they play different now

or not!

but it's churlish at a certain point to begrudge these guys...like look at the other dudes in Ten Years After? What the fuck are they supposed to do? "Learn to code"? It kinda bums me out that the Pixies keep ploughing through but I dunno, like what's Frank Black supposed to do? He's been Frank Black his whole life now, it's too late for him.

it's churlish at a certain point to begrudge these guys...like look at the other dudes in Ten Years After? What the fuck are they supposed to do?

otm. seems cruel to hold performers to arbitrary rules. "oh, you can't play your hit record from when you were in your 20s/30s, you can only do new material."

a live performance is always a balance between gratifying the performer and gratifying the audience. a victory lap decades into a career could very well satisfy both.

yea I mean I've seen a number of bands way past their prime who were more than happy to play a set stacked with songs they'd written several decades ago. they were having fun, the audience loved it, so why not???

there's the possibility they won't live up to the recorded versions but that is always a possibility with live music.

what if the drummer is sick, what if they have a bad night? god forbid you aren't 100% in control of an experience.

It’s a good two thirds of a record we’d never played live

honestly I have no idea what Pierce meant by this, p sure every single track on L&G has been played live at some point, except for maybe "All of My Thoughts" and "Home of the Brave"...?

xp

some people join bands just to get chicks.

my kid is going to see D.R.I. tonight. they could play the Dirty Rotten EP and their first three albums in one set.

they pretty much do if it's a headline slot iirc

That is an odd statement, yes. xxp

yeah, current DRI sets are heavy on the 1st one and Dealing With It

I have the Kraftwerk box of all the albums live.

I wish Sparks had issued one of those.

what's Frank Black supposed to do? He's been Frank Black his whole life now, it's too late for him.

fucking write good songs! record them with people who will call you on your shit if you're not doing your best! this is do-able over a long period of time by any songwriter because it's not magic, it's labor. FB is known to be a dude who got pretty "I call the shots, I'm the Pixies man" as soon as Surfer Rosa jumped off. Frank Black is supposed to elevate his game, and then play "Bone Machine" and "Where Is My Mind?" in the encore. I toe a hard line on this shit

Bibliography
Invisible Man (Random House, 1952). ISBN 0-679-60139-2
Flying Home and Other Stories (Random House, 1996). ISBN 0-679-45704-6; includes the short story "A Party Down at the Square"
Juneteenth (Random House, 1999). ISBN 0-394-46457-5
Three Days Before the Shooting... (Modern Library, 2010). ISBN 978-0-375-75953-6

Ellison died in 1994. Insult-to-injury: Juneteenth and Three Days Before the Shooting are basically re-edits of the same book.

frank black must write great songs you will never listen to to play at concerts you will never attend?

does his guitar make a sound if nobody hears it

see, the solution is simple. when you have been making music for decades and are in your 40s or 50s and maybe have kids to put through school and get called up by Coachella to run through your hits just hang up that phone and get to writing old timer! you must re-create the magic! your life now depends on it!

like I respect what you're saying and ultimately yeah I admire the Wires and Leonard Cohen and Dylan's and The Falls of the world but I guess I get that for some people it IS just a gig and given how brutal the world is esp towards artists i don't begrudge like for for ex. Tommy Keane who I recently saw open for Matthew Sweet run through 45 mins of old stuff and a Big Star cover solo acoustic (presumably because he probably doesn't want to split the small take with a band)

i'm with ums and djp on this one..

and is songwriting really just pure labor, is it not possible to just lose it or whatever?

i understand the naysayers though, it's often a really corny move.

this Machine Head tour was fun because their second set was a Burn My Eyes set, but saw something you don't often see at shows like these where the lineup has changed over the years...they actually had a different band for the second set!

they got Chris Kontos and Logan Mader back just for that set and just for the tour. only person who didn't come back from the original album is Adam Duce, cos he sued the band.

A couple of things:

fucking write good songs! record them with people who will call you on your shit if you're not doing your best! this is do-able over a long period of time by any songwriter because it's not magic, it's labor.

I completely disagree. Songwriting, or pop spngwriting in particular, is a Romantic form that succeeeds or fails according to a degree of inspiration that cannot be summoned on demand. A little magic in the hands of a novice can give you goosebumps, and an expetrly crafted whatever can fall flat. I suspect that often what you perceive as a songwriter "not doing their best" is relying entirely on labor and craft in the absence of any major inspiration.

"What is Frank Black supposed to do now?" - this isn't really anyone else's problem.

Dud.

I suspect that often what you perceive as a songwriter "not doing their best" is relying entirely on labor and craft

(that poster toes a hard enough line on this shit that they have written actual hundreds of songs for public consumption btw)

something you don't often see at shows like these where the lineup has changed over the years...they actually had a different band for the second set!

As well as The Cure playing their first three albums in full at the Sydney Opera House ... used a larger line-up on each successive album, going from a trio to a quintet by bringing back an acrimoniously-fired past member on each return to the stage, I know of the Zombies touring in 2017 with the current lineup doing a full set, and then all living 1950s/60s members playing the Odessey & Oracle album.

Very nice

A year or two ago I saw Fairport Convention perform Liege and Lief in its entireity. None of the current members of the band appeared on the album.

A year or two ago I saw Fairport Convention perform Liege and Lief in its entirety. None of the current members of the band appeared on the album.

Simon Nicol?

(that poster toes a hard enough line on this shit that they have written actual hundreds of songs for public consumption btw)

Ah, excellent! Serves me right for being so presumptuous.

my wife and i saw stevie wonder perform the entire songs in the key of life album (WITH the bonus ep tracks and an encore) and it was the greatest concert i’ve ever been to. i sobbed in public twice (first when he started singing and then during “if it’s magic”)

^read this as Stevie Nicks at first at thought it was an interesting twist to play somebody else’s album like that

ts: stevie wonder playing "rumours" vs. stevie nicks playing "songs in the key of life"

As well as The Cure playing their first three albums in full at the Sydney Opera House ... used a larger line-up on each successive album, going from a trio to a quintet by bringing back an acrimoniously-fired past member on each return to the stage,

It would be hilarious to follow this up by acrimoniously firing them again, one by one, thus finishing the show as a trio again.

Best version of this I've seen was a one-off Kayo Dot show at John Zorn's venue The Stone, where they played two sets: Their fan-favorite debut album Choirs of the Eye in its entirety, followed by their soon-to-be-released album Coyote in its entirety.

Their performance of the debut album wasn't as good as the record, but their performance of the new album was much better than the record. Go figure.

c/d bands doing complete albums by other bands

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/primus-rush-tribute-to-kings-tour-les-claypool-interview-953590/

Shearwater toured Bowie's "Lodger," iirc.

Would rather see 100% new material than this. Although I've been tempted to pull the trigger on Steely Dan album shows before.

Nite Jewel and Peanut Butter Wolf played Kraftwerk's "Computer World" in a Spiegeltent in Sydney 7 years ago

I completely disagree. Songwriting, or pop spngwriting in particular, is a Romantic form that succeeeds or fails according to a degree of inspiration that cannot be summoned on demand. A little magic in the hands of a novice can give you goosebumps, and an expetrly crafted whatever can fall flat. I suspect that often what you perceive as a songwriter "not doing their best" is relying entirely on labor and craft in the absence of any major inspiration.

this post is bad and wrong

otoh it was definitely inspired

Nite Jewel and Peanut Butter Wolf played Kraftwerk's "Computer World" in a Spiegeltent in Sydney 7 years ago

that sounds awesome

One of my favourite memories from the many ATPs I went to is White Fang (who?) playing Purple Rain, in costume.

This summer, Primus will pay homage to prog-rock legends RUSH with a "Tribute to Kings", a cross-country tour that will feature the iconic 'A Farewell to Kings' in its entirety. Special guests Wolfmother will be joining the tour, with The Sword and Battles opening select dates.

"A little over one year ago, Ler LaLonde and I started kicking the idea around of Primus performing a series of shows featuring an iconic Rush album from our youth," says bandleader Les Claypool.

"Being that 'A Farewell to Kings' was the first Rush record I ever heard, and that it contains my all-time favorite Rush tune, "Cygnus X1", the choice narrowed quickly.

Years ago, I had done something similar with Colonel Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, when we covered Pink Floyd Animals in its entirety. It was an insane amount of work, but ended up being one of the most enjoyable live endeavors I've ever done. Dubbing the tour 'Primus: A Tribute to Kings'; it was originally scheduled to be performed in the Fall of 2019, but when we were asked to support Slayer on their Final Campaign, the "Tribute to Kings" tour was postponed.

Geddy, Alex and Neil had been superheroes to Larry, Herb and I in our teens, so when we all became pals while touring together in the early 90's, we were pretty
delighted; partially because of the musical geek-out factor, but mostly because the three guys whom we had admired so much from afar, turned out to be truly great, down-to-earth humans, and like us, a tad eccentric.

The "Tribute to Kings" tour will be just as it is implied, a respectful and loving tribute to three spectacular musicians, songwriters, legends and friends"

A special pre-sale, including VIP upgrade options, will go on sale tomorrow, Wed, February 19 at 10am local time. General public on sale is this Friday, February 21 at 10am local time.

Ticket & show info at www.primusville.com/tour

Just remembered this, and the whole show I saw is online in pro video: Public Enemy toured the 20th anniversary of It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, now in their chopsular-live-band era. At the first Australian show, not only was Professor Griff kept home by visa issues, but Flava Flav was unable to fly out of NYC due to a blizzard. Real cover-band vibes.

which reminded me of

funniest version of this was GZA's "Liquid Swords" tour of 2012, which was supposed to be that album in full, but....wasn't.

an even better version of this: De La Soul doing a 20th anniversary of De La Soul Is Dead tour, announced as being the entire album in full, with actors in costumes and set changes to perform all the skits as well. This turned out to be a completely standard hits show that MAYBE included four songs from the album, but honestly could have just been the two singles. Not only were there no sets, actors, or costumes, but their DJ Maseo didn't even make it to the country. This led to the bittersweet circumstance of opening DJ Prince Paul filling in:

a) sure it was kinda cool to see them with their original producer / Plug 4 backing them up,
but b) as they had not rehearsed, probably ever, let alone for this tour, this did not make for a notable performance,
and c) two years before they'd played with a ten piece jazz-funk band, The Rhythm Roots Allstars, and it had ruled incredibly hard.
(and Cut Chemist had been opener that time, doing an A/V scratch set: imagine him stepping in to improvise a fill-in backing.)

BTW I saw GZA doing Liquid Swords too and he did the whole thing, but it was pretty shoddy presentation: a white guy in a plaid button-down ostensibly DJing the show by just playing the backing tracks after the Genius did an intro. Gza ambled around with one paw in his jeans pocket the whole time, he could have done the same thing with the pause button on an iPod Nano.

Would rather see 100% new material than this. Although I've been tempted to pull the trigger on Steely Dan album shows before.

I saw them do "The Royal Scam," which is not only my favorite Steely Dan album, not only made them play "The Fez," but the night featured Larry Carlton as special guest.

lol was there any advance notice that this wouldn't be happening after all or was it a complete bait and switch?

in my GZA show, he definitely did most of Liquid Swords, but there were a handful of songs he didn't do, for whatever reason.

No warning about the content at all, and just a note on the doors that Mase wasn't there.

My Liquid Swords show was on Jan 7th 2012, and even included B.I.B.L.E. He might have started mixing it up later bcz he got bored or the crowd was lagging during some of the deeper cuts.

Almost always dud? I've had a fair few dispiriting experiences anyway. Maaaaybe non-dud if the band/album didn't receive their due back in the day?

That recent Cure/Disintegration show in Sydney was a next-level instance, playing a bunch of b-sides and demos as well as the LP. Even as an avowed Cure trainspotter who was profoundly looking forward to the night, I found it really quite dull and horribly sequenced. Deluxe edition CD as concert experience.

Conversely it's pretty cool when a band is so into their new LP that they play it to the exclusion of their old material? Nick Cave's Abattoir Blues tour springs to mind (back catalogue didn't get cracked open til the encores anyway).

talk about yr duds if you have the time?

not only was Professor Griff kept home by visa issues, but Flava Flav was unable to fly out of NYC due to a blizzard

welp, turns out I just got a preview

just saw the They Might Be Giants Flood show, I'm a bit lukewarm on this idea as a whole but for ~them~ I think it works. one because they have like 1000 songs and its cool to hear them play songs they otherwise wouldn't play live, especially given that their average tune is like 2 minutes long. two because Flood is one of those albums that seemed to appeal a lot to young people, and judging by the age of the crowd (mid-30s, early-40s) I suspect that for a lot of them Flood was not only one of their first CDs but also a gateway into the idea that a "major label band" could make something that's on that wavelength. either way everyone seemed to know it front to back probably because we've all played it a hundred times. there's something surreal about hearing the deep cuts from that album.

I saw ABC here a couple of years ago, and they played Lexicon in its entirety. Unfortunately they fucked it up by leaving out Valentine's Day, and by playing Poison Arrow a second time at the end. Argh.

wtf Valentines Day is the best song on the album

Why would a band tour an album in its entirety and ... skip a song?

tour from last year w/Massive Attack doing Mezzanine was pretty enjoyable. some slight reordering, inclusion of some songs sampled on the original tracks, and ott Adam Curtis visuals

I saw GZA doing Liquid Swords but it was a pitchfork fest one-off in 2007. Sounds like it was a better experience -- iirc he also had Cappadonna and Killah Priest with him

Why would a band tour an album in its entirety and ... skip a song?

That's one of the eternal sorrowful mysteries. And playing Poison Arrow again as an encore made it feel a bit cabaret-ish. Very good show overall, mind you.