Re: What's the stage like at the IOW fest?
Date: June 10, 2007 21:38
JumpingKentFlash Wrote:
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> Beelyboy Wrote:
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> > pgarof Wrote:
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> > > Not Really a Stones Stage is it!
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> > nope and that's why it's gonna be a great
> > performance.
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> That's what makes a good show for you Beely?
> Seriously?
hi jjkent. yeh seriously tho i know we'll have to agree to disagree on this account...of course i'm serious...the venue and the staging circumstances makes a huge difference...
of course what makes a good show is the playing, the feel, the committment and execution alla that fun stuff...
u get that sometimes at a stadium show...but it's very hot and cold...places like rcmh and beacon are shows fans here report as being as among their best ever...this has been written about a lot and people are entitled to their own views and orientation...especially if all they've ever known is stadiums...when i started seeing them, they were indoors, no screens, standard stage lighting...(like l&g which you have written you do not prefer to latter day concert footages...) i on the other hand, have never heard a better live band ever, that could beat brussels '73...ever...anyone else...pales...in comparison to this...adtl...that's the real thing...it's almost a sad joke to hear it nowadays...most of the time...
they'll stand close to each other, as in the, yes, the dreaded olllldddddd days...have to support and cover each other...as a band...there's a lot of auto-pilot stuff in a timed eventorama...and this aspect has been discussed a lot here, and i get that people, like you would disagree and more appreciate the stadium big show stages and all...i think that big flashy orchestra thing is easy to hide behind...
the gits are often less than stellar and the same thirty year old songs over and over and still bridges and choruses and lead sections are missed and messed up kinda regularly...people talk of jagger never meeting anyone's eyes...an automatic pilot thing...a technique to focus himself, or get himself into a 'character' he dosen't really feel like playing???
used to get the real thang not costumes and spangles...when it started going that way...all of a sudden discussions about how and why this or that night particularly sucked started becoming proliferate...
the question really answers itself in a way...look at the crush for tix a theatre show...i can tell you for sure that the shows i saw in the early '70's...forever married me to the band...if i had happened into something from last night or the night before as my stones experience...
you can cover a hollow core with nine extra bozos on stage and all that crap...
big screens will be there...they are everywhere...
i had written this on the 'ticket sales' threadl (short excerpt):
"interesting to me that the abb shows i care most about were rcmh and beacon, where they actually had to show up for real (and did) or be revealed as less than they are. and for just a few thousand...everyone seein' and feelin' and smellin' each other... "
for me the venue matters hugely...i think you can hear and see the difference in the band immediately...
i had also written:
"all this record breaking attendance stuff does zip zero nada for their legacy as relevant and vital musicians, and in many way injures it seriously;never did quite get why a paradigm that diminshed their presence and power is so exciting for boisterous, even bragging number crunchers, unless they have a piece of the billion dollar pie or something... it's fanatacism for something else other than the music, something other than the art and power of it all...it's tawdry. unseemly... my dad can beat up your dad level of stuff...who friggin' cares and why...
and what a coincidence when they play to a few thousand they end up feeling great, getting closer together, complimenting each other, singing together, playing well and with inspiration...and showing up in every sense of the word, because it's not an architectural staging wet dream of sardines packed into a giant cement pit for shameful and shameless amounts of money...
bein' a stones fan is a rich man's pleasure it seems...
wasn't quite that way when the music mattered...really mattered..to them...and outward from there..."
so yeh, seriously...brings those guys back to earth everytime...mick and keith even shared a mike for a minute there at beacon...those big eventoramas are often impersonal hell holes...i know, after many msg shows...(and they were smart enough to come back to an indoor arena for the hbo special from which most of live licks is culled)...great performance that night...before one overdub...
the stage as the star of the show is totally uninteresting to me...i'm into sonics, fidelity, sight lines and wonderful present original music...where the band can't close their eyes and do it one more time in one more city, making las vegas the world...
my most liberating experience at a stones concert post seventies was happily walking out of l.a. coliseum during their sw set...even strongly suspecting that this would be the swan song for my beloved bill on bass...it was just tinny and far away and so much bluster and no balls...and they could get away with it...because the general fans are pavlov dogs...and not in a particularly good way...
i could say 'wish you coulda been there' but you see the films and clips and still choose the modern era...after watching paint it black from the last show on youtube, and enjoying it...i watched the youtube version (ed sullivan) with just 5 live rolling stones...one guitar, as brian was on sitar...that band and this band are world's apart...you can see mick and the boys checking the audiences temperature and the vibes in the air, and going in for the kill, everybody can see the whites of everybody eyes and it gets real real...and stays real real...
so each to his own...i don't live in the past...anytime you listen to any tape or watch any clip you are already looking at a past event...
there was a time when the stones played belgium with cutting edge never before heard or seen intensity, delicacy, innovative brilliance and genuine heat...
the guitars were never off...keith prowled around in charge and every member of that band made history every night...not grosses or big mini-city cement holes, but put a few guys on a stage, forget ten tons of bullshit...and put out.
they could stay in their street clothes for all i care...would prefer it...
i want it real...most fans here were born long after the first ten or fifteen years of concerts, so they have baseball stadium memories; that's just not my orientation with the stones...and also, i've seen on tape and in person, they respond when they HAVE to respond...they listen when they HAVE To listen...when there's something on the line, they show up...when it's the smell of the greasepaint the roar of the crowd and some disney on ice extravaganza, you're just bringin' hollywood b movie with ya everywhere...complete with big sets and lighting...and the players get more bored...and we have to have regular thread for which guitarist might have been awake or interested or maybe present for a big in this song or that...
they were the alpha and omega and have not lost their talent...it has to make someone of keiths depth and intelligence cynical, to watch people scream like mad when he knows the band is not firing on all cylinders...a poster talked about contempuous for himself and the audience...that's an interseting observation...
i haven't been to a stadium to see a band since...
(the bass player seriously makes a difference also, and this one is lame and boring and out of style and step with the stones music...no wonder they play like they don't care or don't know where they are, except for charlie and mick, half the time...
the boyz have been endless quoted all thru their careers regarding the feel of an audience, etc...but they do everything in their paradigmn that can possibly remove them from that...it's a good show i guess...it used to be a real rock band really going for it...like charlie does each night...i like the band now, i'm a fan, but i'm not delusional as to sharpness, quality, virtuosity, looseness (not sloppiness) tightness and total committment...
watch iow be a great show...they'll work the same stage with the same dimensions as anybody else, drop about 3/4 of their eglatarian nonsense, and be who they basically are...a great rock band...remember the beacon. remember radio city...remember all those shows at msg...and elsewhere in the world whre it wasn't a fireworks show...a few damp rose petals from a sweat drenched jagger were quite enough...more than enough...it's why their still famous today...that energy...those shows and albums...wasn't anyone back in those days gonna deny the power and consistency and magic of a rolling stones show...
then '75 came along and it's been hit and miss ever since...
yeh the stage matters...the venue matters...the guitars and amps matters...the crowd matters...it all matters; or none of it does...
take the showhorses out of their little ring and you'll see the thoroughbred and wild mustang in 'em naturally come to front.