In @vincent’s thread about well dressed bands, @uncle-mick gave us the video to a very good Ultravox song, One Small Day. They appear to be in Iceland (the country) and have a full band set up going on, performing the song with zeal and gusto – as if they we on stage at a homecoming gig in front of thousands of fans.

But they’re not are they? There seems to be no speakers and no audience. We are led to believe that Midge and the gang have rocked up to some, er, rocks and have set up all the band paraphernalia to perform the song in the great outdoors. Which is stupid. All one would hear, at best, would be weedy, twangy strumming against a clattering drum beat and I sense the vocals wouldn’t be the strongest either.

Here’s Big Country, suffering for their art more than most – particularly about 1 minute in where Stuart Adamson looks absolutely freezing, pretending to play guitar.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Afterword…why do bands do this? We all know that these aren’t gangs of pals, united by music, spontaneously “doing the show right » Continue Reading.