Five bands you can’t miss live

Again, another article I’ve done at work that kinda fits in here

Jon

As the summer rolls in we’re set for another season of music festivals. While festivals are a great place to see bands you wouldn’t have normally seen and to discover new acts I’ve always felt that the only real place to see your favourite bands play are at their own gigs. Nothing quite beats the atmosphere at a small venue created by an audience who are all there to see the headline act.

With this article I thought I’d say what my favourite live acts have been and who I recommend catching live as they pass through your town. Whatever you do, don’t miss out on the following five bands.

First up is Tool. Seeing Tool is quite a unique experience. The band aren’t typical in the way that they take the stage at all, with singer Maynard James Keenan standing near the back of the stage, leaving a large open space at the front. Tool are notoriously publicity shy and prefer for their music to take centre stage. They’ve only made personal appearances in two of their eight music videos to date.

The same is certainly true of their live show. They use impressive lighting displays and a laser show for visuals and it really works. The band also use a large video screen that plays animations themed to the songs. The clips used aren’t tracked to the music at all, but on their most recent tour were taken from over six hours of footage and played differently each night. Tool’s guitarist, Adam Jones, creates all of the art and animations for the band and he does an amazing job.

The visual aspect of seeing Tool is almost as good as the fantastic music they play and I would certainly recommend seeing them as you won’t see another band like it.

Next vote for me is The Smashing Pumpkins. I would mainly recommend them as they play their songs so well but are not afraid to change things up and play entirely different versions from what is on the album. I’ve seen them four times now and every show has been entirely different. The band will breathe life into old songs by playing new and different version on each tour. Some songs are extended out into longer jams and you can see how Billy Corgan intended them to be before they were reduced in length for recording.

The Pumpkins are also an amazing band at changing the mood of the show and building it back up. At their loudest they rock as hard as any other band I’ve seen, but then in the same show can play mellow acoustic songs just as well. I think that the depth of their back catalogue helps them live as they have such a wealth of different songs to choose from. A great band live and one that can really pull of playing a large venue better than anyone I’ve seen.

Next band I recommend you go see if you haven’t already is Muse. They have won nine awards for best live act since 2001, and for good reason. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band play with such energy and command a large audience so well. I’ve only seen them twice and the most recent time was a few years ago now, so I’m definitely going to catch them on their next tour. They’re kings of overblown rock at the moment and their songs lend themselves so well to the live environment. A definite must-see no mater what kind of rock you listen to.

Everyone that plays guitar needs to go and see Steve Vai play live. It was a tough choice to pick between the Steve Vai band and Dream Theater for my ‘musicianship’ slot but I think Dr Vai just edges it. Considerably more animated, interesting and lively to watch than Dream Theater, seeing Steve Vai live is like nothing else.

He always takes the most phenomenal musicians on the road with him and seeing his band play his music is quite amazing. The fact that Vai does it all with lasers on his fingers while playing a triple neck guitar makes it all the more mind boggling.

Vai is also of the few musicians I’ve seen that can pull off really heavy rock with crazy solos before bringing it down to the most subtle of ballads with a convincing degree of conviction. Don’t miss seeing Steve Vai as you will never see a show quite like it.

Quite often when you see a metal band play live they’re awful. It is a difficult genre to play well, the instruments must be played to perfection or you have a big mess of indistinguishable noise. Singers in heavy bands can sound really terrible live as well as they struggle to replicate what’s on the album and will often sound worse as the show goes on.

Not so for Gothenburg band In Flames. They play their material to perfection and Anders Frinden is the best metal vocalist I’ve seen live. Never missing a note, never dropping out he sounded like he could go on all day. Quite an achievement if you know In Flames’ material. Combine the excellent performance with pyrotechnics, fireworks, a huge lighting rig and an energetic band and you have a winning combination. An excellent band live and I can’t wait until I see them again later in the year.

I would recommend going to as many live shows as you can, even in genres of music you wouldn’t normally consider as you can end up seeing something really good that you may have missed otherwise. Certainly as a musician seeing a live band can give you so many ideas for your own playing and your own shows. I know I’ve stolen a lot of ideas from seeing bands live.

If you get the chance to see any of these bands live then I definitely recommend it, if you don’t see them then you’re really missing out on a great experience.

Why changing styles is good for a band

I wrote this article at work today, thought it might be interesting to stick it up here too

Jon

Change. It is a word that frightens many. The advent of change in our lives is often greeted with hostility and mistrust, as a species we are creatures of habit and our greatest fears often lie in the unknown.

Musicians must constantly grapple with change. The world of music is an interesting case with regards to change in that you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Often a band will attempt to change their sound to remain fresh and exciting only to be shot down in flames. However if you stay the same you’re accused of being stale and past your best.

It is a difficult medium to maintain, and few artists manage it. It would appear to be getting harder as well as we see less career bands come through, and more one hit wonders and fad acts gain popularity very quickly before fading into obscurity.

One of the best examples I can think of where a band was affected drastically by changing their sound is the Smashing Pumpkins. The band released their debut album, Gish in 1991 on a wave of new grunge acts and early 90s alt-rock popularity. Although the album was well received, the Pumpkins didn’t really hit the big time until their second album, Siamese Dream.

Siamese Dream was in all respects a continuation of the sound that the band had established on Gish. Much more ambitious than many of their peers at the time, the album featured a lot of overdubs, studio tricks and guitar solos, all of which were unfashionable at the time. Despite this, the lead single, Today, was a hit on MTV and the band were acclaimed as one of rocks leading acts.

Their next album saw another shift in sound, this time they went into epic rock territory, employing even more instruments and much more expressive ideas. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was a huge double album that seemed to explore every side of Billy Corgans musical personality. Although a change in style the root of their sound was still there. The album was littered with hard rock classics that anyone that loved Siamese Dream instantly connected to. Songs such as Bullet With Butterfly Wings and Zero became mid 90s alt rock classics alongside the more introspective 1979 and Thirty-Three.

Here was an example of a band that had managed to change their sound, remain fresh and gain fans and momentum on the way. It was a brave move to release such a huge body of work at a time when nu-metal was just beginning to gain popularity but it shows the power that changing your style can have in winning new fans and yet staying interesting.

It is important for a musician to progress and change, otherwise you become bored with what you’re playing. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to tour an album for a couple of years and then go back and write a follow up that is almost exactly the same. I’m sure that the Pumpkins felt the same and that changing it up with each release was really the only way that they could keep the band going.

Their next release, Adore, was their boldest step yet. After the bombastic might of Mellon Collie, Adore was a quiet, introspective album that showed a darker, mellower side of the band. Written after several tragic events in the lives of the band, it would seem a natural place to go. However with the world expecting another typical Smashing Pumpkins album full of epic rock songs with heavy guitars Adore was released with songs driven by piano melodies and electronic beats.

In short, the album was not well received by the press or the public. Instead of taking the album as it was as a brilliant piece of music it was lambasted for not adhering to the formula that the public had made for the band. Adore sold substantially less copies than the previous albums and the band haven’t reached the same height of popularity since.

The release of Adore was an example of where artists needs to be brave if they feel that they have to change. Having poured everything into making Mellon Collie I’m sure that Billy Corgan felt that he had exhausted that genre entirely and needed a new musical challenge. Had the band released Mellon Collie part two it would have inevitably been worse than the original and the band would have been picked apart in any case.

The key point for needing to progress is that if you really put your heart and soul into making the best possible album you can in a particular style, how can you be expected to repeat that without making something inferior? The answer is that you can’t. I think this is why we see a lot of flash-in-the-pan bands today who seem to be massive for six months and then disappear entirely. They make a fantastic debut, try to replicate it and fail.

So if you’re a musician my advice would be to never shy away from learning a new style, or taking a new influence, as you never know where your song writing may end up. Always try new things and push your boundaries and you’ll end up as a much better musician because of it. I’m glad that the Smashing Pumpkins took that brave step releasing Adore as I personally think it is a brilliant and highly underrated album. Ironically the style would come into fashion several years later with Radiohead producing a similar album with Kid A.

It is only by changing what is commonly expected as the norm that new styles of music will be discovered. True music fans aren’t interested in listening to the same regurgitated music over and over. At your next band practise, instead of thinking how you can sound like your idols, stop for a moment and think about how you can sound like you instead. Your music will be better off for it.