Over the last couple of weeks I've been noticing that many live bands are adding additional musicians for their live performances. I saw an extra guitar player in Red Hot Chili Peppers and extra keyboard and backup singers gallore during the Live Earth program.

Any opinions on this? Cool? Not cool? Stop writing parts you can't pull off live with your original band? All in the name of entertainment?

I don't know...it kind of depends. I like Modest Mouse with all of the extra dudes; the two drummers thing sounds really cool. I guess if it sounds good, I like it. Heck, the Polyphonic Spree has like 30 people on stage sometimes and they sound rad.

quote:

Originally posted by Sid:
Stop writing parts you can't pull off live with your original band?

I have always felt really strongly about that. I hate listening to an album and getting into it, only to go see a live show and having a stripped down performance handed to you. Awful.

When I saw the Chili Peppers tour for Mother's Milk, they had none of the horn sections that had a huge presence in many songs on that album. Disappointing. I like bands that sound better live than they do recorded. As far as "exta" musicians go, I think that it may as well be considered your duty to find and provide them to back up parts on your recording if the band as is can't do it. It is the honest thing to do.

Why is it that many metal bands like Cinderella and Europe put their keyboard players behind the curtain where they can't be seen when they have so many wonderful intros to play?

a lotta folks, like Joe Walsh, tour with two drummers who play onstage at the same time. I don't really understand it, but it's really cool to watch.

Thinkiing about this kinda stuff, I reckon that the most honest band musically I ever saw was Oingo Boingo. Make fun of it if you will, but it's pretty involved stuff, and they didn't miss a lick without extras.

Well, here's the thing...

A lot of the horns, keys, and extra percussion parts are on recordings because of producers. The band really has no say about it, except for how to arrange the parts, and that's subjective to what their contract says.

If you get on a big label and think that your songs will be recorded as you wrote them, you're sadly mistaken.

here, you'ld better take some advice before you go up onstage to help your band friends

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33224

An extra player or two can round out the live sound, but this is ridiculous.

I saw that extra guitarist behind the amps during RHCP and I thought that was kinda strange ... then again, I'm surprised that John Fruciante (sp) can play guitar at all anymore. I feel it's their music and they can do whatever they want but once you get background lip syncing loops or studio musicians involved I lose respect for them as a 'band'. Ten again RHCP can even write a song without the word 'california' in it anymore.

Watching a few hours of this concert with my band in the hotel up in Denver on Saturday really proved the sad state that popular music is in today. I hate to be so negative but I thought most of the performances were absolutely terrible... esp. the hip hop... nothing like a little degrading gangsta wrap to help save the planet.

The dude formerly known as Cat Stevens was the best performance I saw (I only saw an hour of the show) ... and I hate to admit it but John Mayer was pretty good too.

Beastie Boys: They were REALLY loose... almost o the point of sucking. Their clear gear and suits were really rad though!
Madonna: She played guitar in high heels which is always hot but the music wasn't very good.
Dave Matthews Band: I fucking hate Dave Mathews. I hate looking at his bassist dance and his drummer blowing bubbles while he plays. I don't get it.
Chris Cornell: Decent ... but he doesn't have the pipes that he used to have.
Joss Stone: She's no Janis Joplin but this bare-footed hippie is pretty cute.
Fall out Boy: Fucking absolutely awful... I wanted to puke. what the fuck??????
RHCP: The bass wasn't loud enough
Kanye West: boring
Kelly Clarkson: I respect her for sticking to her guns
Pharrell: Horrible... if you can't make Brasilians dance then you really, really suck

What did you guys think???


Would have like to have seen:
Roger Waters
WolfMother
Lenny Kravitz
Smashing Pumpkins
Foo Fighters
the Police
Metallica
Genesis

Lenny Kravitz was ok, Metallica was cool, though James' voice sounded horrible, and the police, well, I think of them as kinda an icon, but then Kanye West came out and started rapping SOS along with sting singing, that was really bad.

"Achilles Last Stand" by Led Zeppelin: should it not have the guitar overdubs? There's no way Page could play all those parts at once. I never got to see Zep -- how did they handle this song live? Just don't play it? Play tapes? Guest guitarists?

The thing is, I think it's a great song. I'd hate for the answer to be, "don't record music like that."

I've still never gotten to see Blind Guardian live either. *sigh* I can't believe just 4 guys would be able to play a song like "Time Stands Still at the Iron Hill" in real time. So it's either 1) don't make songs like that (FUCK YOU!!!) or 2) play tapes (ugh) or 3) guest musicians/symphony. They probably do option #2, but #3 would really be ideal.

live is live and studio is studio ... change the part up a bit if you can't pull it off live. But play it yourself, don't hire a monkey to stand behind the amps. Playing a song "exactly" like it is on the album is sorta lame anyways, no???

You mention Led Zepplin... I don't think they ever played a exactly song the same twice... always slightly different tempo, different groove, different solo, different vocal parts. Same thing with any legendary band.

Playing a show note for note what you play on your album is boring and uninspired.



BTW ... here's WolfMother's live earth performance. Pretty 'dirty'

http://youtube.com/watch?v=F3TIJprI5tA

Lenny Kravitz has a mountain of vintage fender amps big enough to feed a small army of regular bands .... hoarder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PQPjvuTtofA&mode=related&search=

wanna hear great music...buy the album...but if you wanna see a great performence with good music...go to the show...

ive noticed that while recording our music right now...that we are applying minor over-dubs to enhance the song...when performing them live our playing may get a bit more complicated adding those lil nuances but hey...thats our job...if anyone of us gets to rhcp status...i still wouldnt add another musician with the exception of horns, percussion or strings...something that is beyond our abilities to perform live...though in between samples i.e. digital sounds, solar winds, submarine sonar are appropriate live...

quote:

Originally posted by Sid:
I saw an extra guitar player in Red Hot Chili Peppers ?

The drummer looks exactly like Will Ferrell...

quote:

Originally posted by DaveFame:
Will Ferrell...

is the only extra musician I would ever imagine having to use.

HAHAHAHA...MORE COWBELL!!!

the way i look at it, the songs are written the way they are to be played live. if an artist chooses to enlist the help of other musicians to add their take on a recording, the artist is simply adding to the song. the recording is something that will be heard over and over so the addition of another part is understandable from my view.

i guess it just comes down to the question:
are the extra musicians just an addition to a good song?
or
are they carrying the song making the live version weak

i can easily see both sides to the question.

one of my favorite records is the bronx's first self titled album. they had a 3 take rule while recording, they had 3 full takes to nail the song, and they took the best of the 3 completed takes. no redos, no overdubs (well, they might've dubbed the vocals). but that was it, raw, rocking, beautiful.

but on the other side of the coin, my band is a bunch of fucking knob twisters and sound tweakers (i redid a single guitar part at least 10 times to get my tone just right, i roll my eyes at myself for that one). so i'm just as guilty as anyone else in terms of doing things in the studio that can't entirely be reproduced live. there are parts of our new record that have 2 played guitar parts and up to 3 tracks of feedback noise underneath them. now, clearly we don't have 5 guitar players.

and we've also gone through various states of live setups to accomodate things like extra parts, we started out with a keyboard player, i had a sampler for a long time, we've used a variety of keyboards and/or laptop triggered noises from time to time in our live show. at the moment we're playing live at our most stripped down, no electronics, no keyboards. and we've adjusted some song arrangements to accomodate that. so the live versions end up being slightly different from the album versions, which i feel okay with. they both have their merits.