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Great on record, shit live.


ca_gere

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Was listening to CSS - Cansei de ser sexy or whatever it's called the other day. A great wee upbeat poppy record IMO. But what a truly horrific live band they were (are?). I mean on cd the lass has a cute, bohemian, twee voice that goes perfectly with the music but live she just shouts/speaks at two levels: too loud and pointlessly quiet.

Got me thinking... Any others? Or even vice versa: great live, shit on record?

Another one for me (almost) was Dj Krush. A total hero of mine that I finally got to see live a few years ago. It was boring and lifeless. I put it down to the strange crowd (dreaded trustafarians with reggae t shirts mostly) as instead of his trademark crazy syncopated rhythms he had to resort to dubby dancehall classics to elicit any response. I gave him another shot and saw him again later that year and it was electric. Instantly back up in my estimation. Phew.

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Pig Destroyer

They were wasted, or pilled up, and looked like they just wanted to sleep.

Bad Religion

Dull. Not as much of an energetic live show as I'd expected.

Weezer

They're not really natural born performers. Rivers talks a big game, which is humerous, and he plays the solos differently every time, which is neat. It's all stand on the spot, heads-down though. Disappointing.

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Slayer - seen them a couple of times. First time was great but then after seeing them a few times I noticed they were just going through the motions and actually very dull.

Venom - never seen them live in the flesh but holy shit, live they're atrocious. Chronos has always said " want to hear venom? Listen to the record. See us live...expect Mayhem". They were never a talented band or the tightest musicians and atleast they admitted this.

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Guest Gladstone

Arctic Monkeys.

Absolutely loved their first two albums, but they were disappointing live.

Dull, motionless performance. It sounded a lot like the CD, but visually they just didn't seem to have much energy about them. And fucking hell when Alex Turner talks, I have to punch myself in the face to stay awake.

That said if they came to Aberdeen again, I'd probably go just to see if they've livened up any...

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Not that I'm a fan in the slightest but, having seen them in passing on TV, Dragonforce seem terrible live compared to their recorded material.

In moshulu years ago they were fairly going for it and had it all to play for. Years later in Glasgow they were an almost parody of what they were before. Glad they've disappeared into the world of video games and level 10 maces.

Electronic drums live .... Tut tut!

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All bands have bad gigs. I'm trying to think of bands who I listen to and love but are just fundamentally wrong live. Often it's bands who have studio specific sounds on their records that you can't fully reproduce or even come close to live. A classic example of that is any singer who whips out the old megaphone to sing through.

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I think Brand New are a band that have improved greatly along the years. I saw them on the "Devil and God..." tour and they were really good. Before that I was a bit suspicious of the live stuff I'd heard on youtube. I guess you can't judge a band by the odd video on youtube but that rendition of "The Quiet Things..." is god awful. What's with the effect on the lead part at the start, it sounds awful. It sounds like Jesse cannae mind the notes he's meant to sing as well. Myself and Shaki's acoustic cover is much better. Anyway, they were definitely on it when I saw them last and a lot of their videos of their newer stuff is the dog's bollocks, Daisy is an horrendous album though.

Iron Maiden were pretty boring live, in the sense that they played every song from their latest album which was shit. Only got about 3 or 4 "classic" tunes which was severly disappointing.

I don't believe anyone that says Bad Religion aren't good live. I've not seen them live but I still wouldn't agree with that opinion.

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They were awesome in Glasgow.

I thought it was probably a one-off. Youtube footage proves that right. Especially the video I've seen where he doesn't even use a microphone, yet you can still hear him. Brutal.

This one was in Manchester. It was arse. The songs were slower, and sloppy as hell.

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Iron Maiden were pretty boring live, in the sense that they played every song from their latest album which was shit. Only got about 3 or 4 "classic" tunes which was severly disappointing.

I don't believe anyone that says Bad Religion aren't good live. I've not seen them live but I still wouldn't agree with that opinion.

This and this!

Many will probably disagree but I've seen Teenage Fanclub live 3 or 4 times and have always found them pretty dull whereas I love them on record.

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I'm sure Bad Religion were good live when they were all 20somethings, but since they're pushing 40 and dicking about on webcams, and writing songs like 'Sorrow', they've gone dull. It's punk rock. I expected guitar jumps and shit. I got nothing. They've got 3 guitarists now, and they all play the same thing. They were disappointing. Especially since I saw NOFX the day before, who were fun as fuck.

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Guest idol_wild
I'm surprised to see the Arctic Monkeys mentioned a couple of times.

I saw them at Reading Fest the summer just before they released their first album, they were great.

(btw I can't claim any cool points for knowing them early)

You're right there.

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Needless to say, I've never seen him live, but Jeff Buckley's live recordings are pretty rubbish for the most part. Its mostly to do with how far he distracts from the original melodies. It just gets a bit annoying when I listen to his live recordings.

The Foo Fighters were pretty shit live. I used to love The Colour and the Shape (it is a great album) and I saw them at Gig on the Green in Glasgow. They did the same quiet breakdown, into build-up, then back into the song type thing. That was explained badly but trust me, it was shit.

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Arctic Monkeys struggled with the transition in venue size, I some folks who saw them at Leeds that year and the same thing was true there. Unfortunately they can't (or at least couldn't a couple of years ago) pull off the arena gigs that they were getting. The confidence and swagger of those early performances were completely missing.

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