I remember the days, when there used to be a lot more grumbling re bands using backing tracks and the like, maybe it’s just me, but people don’t seem to be bothered about it as much now with acts using Apple Macs and the like on stage. The last time I saw Marillion live, they used quite a lot of backing tracks for backing vocals etc and the last time I saw Richard Hawley live, he had some backing tracks too on some tracks, it almost seems to be the norm these days. I enjoyed the first half of U2s show earlier in the year as it was just the four of them playing on a small stage as a band with no hidden extras. I know on some of their tours in the nineties they used to have a couple of extra guitarists playing under the stage. What are your views? Do you mind seeing a live act with backing tracks or would you rather see a band with extra players helping out onstage?
Backing Tracks -Does It Really Matter Anymore?
It’s a budget thing for a lot of bands. There isn’t the money to pay musicians to fill in the string parts or whatever, so if you want the parts, you use a track.
Or alternatively, you don’t. We used to, but were never happy with it. It didn’t feel right, even though we’re a largely electronic band – it had a hint of karaoke about the whole thing. So nowadays we have an all-hardware, no laptop live setup. I’m playing most of the keyboard parts you hear on my main synth (I can effectively play 6 instruments at once from one keyboard) and triggering bass and drums in real time from a sequencer, which is making the sounds live rather than playing back a recording. That means I can tweak the sounds and have a lot of flexibility over when and how things happen, and also there’s a lot of scope for me to mess it up by triggering sequences at the wrong time etc.
Although we might make more mistakes doing this, it feels a bit more honest.
It sort of depends as to whether it is covert or not. I think it is false if you are led to believe all the sounds come from the people present on stage. The last time I saw Gregson and Collister it was just the pair of them and a drum machine, and once you got past the somewhat clumsy turning it on and off, it was fine. Maybe the fact Clive G was so openly switching it on and off gave it credit.
And I don’t mind extra musicians as long as I can see them, sometimes the more the merrier.
I finally got over this when I first saw Public Service Broadcasting. Drummer, guy with guitar occasionally playing keyboards and an awful lot of sound effects and backing tracks. I think the human and mighty fine drummer Wrigglesworth made it feel a lot less mechanical than it might, but I’m not sure it’s any different from seeing U2 on the Zooropa tour who were pioneering this kind of thing though I probably didn’t realise it at the time.
It’s all about the music for me: does it work, does it move me? The methodology is totally secondary.
Well The Who were using a tape for a synthesizer track in the early 70s for Who’s Next material (and ever since). Something like that is ok, but pretending and cheating isn’t.
What is pretending and cheating? Lots of bands don’t have a drummer at all, but a drum machine. (I’m in one.) The “drums” aren’t being played: a machine is doing it. Is that cheating? Seems like you run into arbitrary difficulties quite quickly with that approach.
No that isn’t cheating. if a drummer is pretending to play then that is different.
Doesn’t bother me, although pre recorded backing vocals seem odd coming from nowhere.
Bob’s right it often comes down to economics, but also some music was never ‘live’ in the first place. I remember a bunch of whining bellends on the old Word site complaining about a Scritti Politti gig that used a lot of pre sequenced stuff…they were playing a small gig as a four piece, and playing stuff which was sequenced and programmed on record, so not sure how it was supposed to be recreated live other than hiring 4 or 5 extra keyboard players to play melodies on one finger. It was a great gig (and I recall their keyboard player weighed in to the argument!)
Yes Mr Marsden put his dukes up against the moaning minnows – the prime one being someone who wasn’t even at the gig, watched the clip online and somehow felt shortchanged
Last week I saw a group of musicians playing at the Union Chapel.
Michael Price & Iskra Strings with Peter Gregson.
Basically. a traditional string quartet with an extra cello (courtesy of Mr Gregson) and the composer playing piano or accordion or sometimes just sitting while the others played his music.
On one piece the other 5 played and Mr Price sat at the piano and played a recording of a female soprano singing, from a tablet he had on the piano’s music stand.
Presumably the singer wasn’t available to perform on that occasion but Mr Price wanted the piece performed. Can’t say it bothered me that the voice was a recording. Seemingly it didn’t bother anyone else in the audience either.
It’s where you draw the line I suppose. Was it the mid-90s when Reg got a lot of press for mocking Madonna’s receipt of Best “Live Act” at the Q awards? “100 quid to watch someone lipsyncing, fuck off” or somesuch? Even at the time I remember thinking that that ship had already sailed in terms of general attitudes. As I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first to venture: once you slap a bit of reverb on a vocal you’re ‘cheating’. That said, it’s always good to know you’re having the experience you think you’re having.
A not unrelated thought: I would imagine with live technology being so advanced now the argument has also left the realms of ‘honesty’ and is more about acts now being to offer the same sonic intricacies and subtleties in the live environment where there used to be the assumption that ‘live’ as never going to be ‘better’ than record (purely at a audio clarity level). I would imagine Nine Inch Nails’ would have enough under the hood of their live rig to not have to settle for replicating their records with a sonically inferior set-up.
In terms of extra hands on stage, I remember being baffled by a TV performance of Placebo where a couple of extra guys were standing right BEHIND the backline amps. You could tell they were there but were so obviously ‘hidden’ it was laughable. it’s one thing to have extra people up the back, or with less screentime, but this was ridiculous. I suppose Stop Making Sense has a lot to answer for in this regard in terms of the expectation of what extra musicians bring to the band.
The problem with female pop megastars in particular, is the expectation of recording-quality singing and simultaneous acrobatic dancing in a “spectacular” live arena show.
Of course they lip-sync. They have to, otherwise either the singing or the dancing would suffer.
I take issue with singers who really can’t sing but are supposed to be “great dancers”. So why don’t they do that instead?
It’s like a crap chef who is great at doing the dishes.
On the whole, I’d like to hear just them, even if the album was made with additional musicians, orchestras, choirs, loops and the like. I don’t need to hear the live version of the song sound exactly like the record.
Yebbut we don’t want it to end up sounding like the sort of cover version that’s been complained about in that other thread. Do we?