“Venue acoustics matter (if you find a local spot where loud music sounds good, go back).
- Smaller venues are better.“
On the other hand, large arena acoustics have vastly improved since the late 70’s. E.g. the Super Bowl acoustics for the halftime show, perhaps the largest watched Live annual venue in the US for recording artists, has greatly improved since the 70’s, when it was mostly a few songs by the local marching band, plus a few by jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Since 1993, the first year that the NFL decided to take the Super Bowl Halftime show seriously and had Michael Jackson perform live, it has become an amazing extravaganza watched by tens if not hundreds of millions —and the acoustics now rival the best on earth for any live show. Obviously it has to, for one wrong move or bad note and the entire reputation for quality performance can take a nosedive that might take decades to recover. They still talk about the malfunctioning wardrobe of Janet Jackson in 2004.
At venues like this, it’s almost expected that pure music fans will see THE live performance of their lifetimes; sometimes, they actually do.
And in no small part it’s due to the greatly improved acoustics. Acoustics- they’ve come a long way since the 70’s.
If you do dance numbers you are probably lip syncing. For a big pop star tour they always have the backup track ready. Even if you have good technique there is a chance your voice could go or at least be weak any given night. My guess is that it then varies from using the backup track to reenforce the weaker vocal to outright lip syncing.
Metal groups like Metallica aren't lip syncing, and clearly their fans love every second of their shows. Small venues for metal bands would literally shake the s##t out of the building they play in, whereas an arena can better absorb the playing just fine.
I used to (try to) sing in a band in the Bay Area with a seriously devoted metal guitarist. We rented a small rehearsal room (high ceiling but still a small harsh room). This guy would play a triple rectifier through 4 vintage 30s and his feeling was that amplifier tube distortion was the real sound, none of this pussy preamp tube distortion.
The drummer was hard hitting enough to keep up but kept complaining he couldn't hear my vocals but if I turned the gain up on the mic the feedback squeal would begin and he'd complain about that. I was too inexperienced to just sing and a normal volume with earplugs in and just take the complaints.
I honestly do not understand the appeal of music being that loud. Not in the case of these guys but generally it's just a way to cover up poor live musicianship.
in the case of metal and other louder forms of rock, the musicianship is genuine. Slash for instance is a virtuoso at lead guitar. In arenas and other large scale venues, the music is cranked up to 11 and a half (almost to 12) so the many tens of thousands can hear as well as feel the music (esp. the beat).
Excellent point brought up, many lead vocalists in hard rock/metal bands aren't virtuosos at singing (as opposed to opera singers), they tend to be "good enough". From a technical standpoint, was Ozzy Osbourne really that great of a singer? Probably not, but on stage singing live, he was the total package and never seemed to let his loyal fans down. Playing live, its really about putting on a great show, and if you're able to manage to maintain an artistic or musical integrity to the craft, additional bonus points are added.
My summary of 1980s hair metal is "amazing musicians playing boring music". I think Ozzie is amazing. There are different ways to be great singers and great musicians. On one end you have the studio musician/touring musician who can drop in any band and play any style. On the other hand you have guys who can only play a single very distinct style but they somehow put their life and testicles into every note.
There are a lot of great singers who have their voices made mediocre by the engineering. Recently everything is autotuned to hell and I hate it. You'd think this means most modern pop stars can't sing but every time I see a video showing them untuned I tend to conclude, no they sing great and the autotune should be dumped.
Lots of amazing metal singers out there even in the 1980s. Technical perfection is great, but also has a distinct sound. Sometimes a young singer sacrifices his vocal cords for the greater good like Kurt Kobain or that second AC/DC singer. (every time I listen to Back in Black my throat hurts for him)
Absolutely right about acoustics. I was a big fan of The Police and knew all their songs when I saw them as a teenager in 1981 or whenever they toured for Ghost in the Machine, at Riverfront Coliseum, the big indoor arena in Cincinnati. The sound was so awful that I couldn't really tell whether they were actually playing as well as they seemed to be.
My high school music teacher and sometime percussionist for the Cincinnati Symphony somehow got to be backstage for that show and told me that indeed they were... He was particularly impressed by Stewart Copeland's power and virtuosity on drums: at one point, he said, Copeland was thrashing the kick drum so hard that he snapped the coupling on his pedal, then continued to play the bass figure by literally kicking the drum while a roadie popped out to replace the pedal mid-song, apparently used to handling this problem.
As for the 70s Super Bowl halftime shows, I mostly remember being repeatedly appalled by Up With People, a nauseously soulless song-and-dance crew seemingly engineered for the Pat Boone fan base: https://youtu.be/2ruQ1tj4MDA
Second on the amazingness of Stewart Copeland. The Police were a supergroup. I don't much care for Sting's singing (In the Police. In in solo career he sang in his tesstura more) but it's good enough and his bass is great too.
When he was with the Police, it was about putting on a show to fit the image of the band, which was more rock than his solo career. Sting has an amazing voice, though, no matter his iteration, Police or solo.
In the Police he had to sing high to cut through the mix. To me he sounds borderline falsetto in many of those songs. They also do the standard thing of removing all the bass from his vocals so it doesn't "muddy" the mix but to my ears it makes the voice sound thin. It happens in almost all rock music.
I misremembered it as 1981, but I also saw them at my small college in '79, my only big-name rock concert. There was a contingent from the nearby city, so it wasn't too empty. Roxanne was the only song I'd heard before. Lotta noise from 3 performers. 188 performances in '79.
My sister was an undergraduate at Grinnell in Iowa at that time and went with a fellow member of the entertainment committee to I think Des Moines to give The Police a ride to their concert at the college. (I guess their gear was in a separate vehicle? Dunno.) She said they were super-funny, and she was surprised to learn that one of them was American. There was confused and hilarious discussion about some unfamiliar agricultural crop they saw on the drive: sorghum maybe? Anyway, next thing you know they were doing arenas.
Totally agree with the general sentiments on venue/band selection - although I am in my 40s I still go to around 10 shows a year and stadium/arena venues are usually awful. Way too loud, poor sound quality, and of course ticket prices are outrageous. There have been a few exceptions where somehow a band managed to get the sound right but overall I just don't bother anymore. Fortunately I have a great venue that holds about 900 people less than 10 minutes from my house so it's big enough to attract a decent number of performers that I like, the sound is excellent, and ticket prices are very moderate. I will take a flyer on groups I barely know of just because I know they will sound as good as they can and if I'm not into it the cost was minimal and I can walk out early be home in a few minutes. The other thing with these types of venues is that it's impossible to hide the quality of musicianship - have seen a couple of bands that were getting noticed, appeared on Late Night or something and it was obvious that the studio smoothed out a lot of rough edges. Conversely, there are some that were so good live that I will go see them anytime they are here or in a nearby city.
I envy your situation and attitude. It's so difficult to convince myself to leave the house to see a band especially by myself. Like you I know chances are the live performance will be poor because of the sound engineering. I don't think an open arena intrinsically has poor acoustics. If anything it has no acoustics. Without walls to bounce off you don't get acoustic amplification but you also (thankfully) don't get acoustic distortion. With modern PAs you don't need the acoustic amplification anymore so if a stadium sounds bad that's on whoever selected and installed the PAs and the sound engineers at the event (and the band of course)
And yes a lot of top rock acts are not as good live as their studio work would suggest. That's such a big topic I may just crap out a few paragraphs and put it on my own Substack (Since Substack gives you one when you sign up for Steve)
I have always enjoyed music a lot and listen to it basically all day long at work and in the car (in fact, I have it on now), and for me the emotional response of seeing it live is really rewarding. Obviously sometimes the band or venue sucks, but I have a handful of indoor and outdoor places in my city that have good sound and are relatively easy to get in and out of so I just keep an eye on who is coming and will buy tickets to just about anything I am vaguely interested in. My wife is not as into music as myself but over the years hitting these shows is something we enjoy doing together and we have various friends that like to come along at times as well. When I travel I also check out who might be in that location and have gotten lucky with some fun performances of people I've wanted to see or seen elsewhere that way.
Lived in Austin TX 1970-73, and made it back over the next 10 years to see my two sisters who married Texas boys. What a time to catch up and coming music acts. Fall of '70 went to see Allman Brothers at the football stadium, and like Steve, discovered I was no fan of stadium rock. (But for a state that theoretically had a life sentence for pot, I was amazed at the, umm, pervasive atmosphere.) Highlight was catching a guitar phenom at the Armadillo who I'd never heard of in 1979, but who my sister and her husband worshipped: Stevie Ray Vaughn. But my memories of guys who never went that far, Steve Goodman, John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker and Kinky Friedman are equally treasured.
That all sounds great. Would have loved to hear Stevie Ray Vaughan in his natural environment. John Prine is one of those guys I loved for years without connecting the name to the songs.
I was in 4th grade in 1977 and my parents - shockingly - allowed me to go see KISS with my friend and his mom at the Omni in Atlanta. The costumes, makeup, pyrotechnics, volume, and other effects, like cherry pickers lifting band members high above the stage, were over-the-top. And, on top of all that you had Gene Simmons breathing fire and spitting “blood.” For a 10-year-old boy, it made quite an impression and I still list it as one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.
I don’t think I could name a single KISS song except the aforementioned Rock All Night, but I vaguely remember collecting bubble gum cards as a little kid that once you had them all you got a KISS poster. Gene Simmons may have been one of the all time great marketers. He definitely looked the coolest of the group with his design, Paul Stanley not so much.
I read an apocryphal comment somewhere and no idea if it's true that he had a minor fall several weeks earlier. Bumps and bruises. Then this latest fall was down a giant staircase in his house and he got knocked into a coma and really beat up.
Anyhoo, age related vestibular problems and striking architectural details aren't a good combination. You have to really scale everything back once you hit your seventies. Getting old sucks.
People always ask me why I took up judo in my 50s. Okay fine, people don't ask that often but my older cousin did ask if I was out of my mind. The answer is, learning how to fall, because in another couple decades you'll start doing it and it can be a disaster.
Great minds, tovarich. I was toying with adding to my comment that I did hapkido for a few years (in my 50s!) and thinking that I should practice falls again in preparation for my dotage.
The key I have learned is to alter your life such that you are always on a mat. Hard surfaces are your enemy. My training partner is in his early 30s and asked coach (sensei whatever) why start practicing falls with your butt approaching your heels instead of falling from higher. Coach suggested he try it from waist level. The guy weighs about 280. I would have loved to see him learn by doing but he declined.
Every time I do it, especially when I try my palsied version of the forward roll, I'm amazed at how much easier these things were when I was a kid. Children, even heavy children, fall all the time and just kinda bounce. I honestly wondered as a child how judo could be a martial art when we used to do stuff like that to our friends for fun.
Turns out you just have to become an adult. My brother who is much more of an athlete than I will ever be, told me he couldn't imagine attempting a forward roll. They even sucked for him in his early 20s.
Great song-has a place on my 'walking playlist' and the one I played for his memory-I can just as easily imagine this playing as JT wanders NY as I can Stayin' Alive
Gene certainly had an eye for talent as he also had Van Halen and about a dozen other well-known bands open for KISS over the years. The funny thing about that is that while it's cool to say that you saw a band open well before anyone else ever heard of them, the drawback is that they are playing songs you've never heard of. Styx played Come Sail Away but their monster hits would come later.
Of course in the end Styx (and Van Halen) had more monster hits than KISS ever did; Steve's comment about only recognizing Rock and Roll All Nite is probably not off the mark as I Was Made for Lovin' You didn't come until later. Beth was a big hit of that time but wasn't a rock song per se. It was part of their encore and was objectively their biggest hit even though Gene hated it as it was Peter's baby
The opening act for all the previous dates on the Love Gun Tour was Cheap Trick. It switched to Styx for the last dates in Texas. Styx was touring on their commercial breakthrough album "The Grand Illusion".
I never saw a KISS concert, and I don't know a single one of their songs. But in the late 1960s, I knew their "Demon," when he called himself Gene Klein and was a science fiction/comics book fan. I couldn't have projected that fellow's future, but I assume he's had a good time.
Also prefer small venues but not for the acoustics. The acoustics of a small venue are likely awful as well. Anyway your problem with stadiums was not likely due to poor acoustics of the venue. A stadium without a roof doesn't have much in the way of acoustics. But in 1997 PAs weren't all that great and in a stadium you'd be pretty dependent on them. You're pretty much listening to a rock show over your nearest PA speaker while watching the band pantomime in the distance.
You've inspired me to write my own post on why live music sucks.
My favorite Kiss song was "God of Thunder" which I found on the Double Platinum album I accidentally ordered from the Columbia record and tape club. Later I saw a TV show in which they fought robot doppelgängers at an amusement park. Right up there with the Star Wars Christmas special. I had a friend who was a super fan but I never thought much of them.
That is SO true. Last December, my son and I saw Billy Gibbons and Jimmy Vaughn in a little club here in Fort Worth called Tannahills. There were maybe 250 people. It was amazing. The sound was perfect. I've probably seen ZZ Top a half dozen times over the years, and seen the Fabulous Thunderbirds a couple. But this was easily the best sounding show I've seen for either of them. And it was nice being within 20 feet of the stage without a massive crowd.
Trent reznor is known as a perfectionist with sound systems, but Nine inch nails did not have a crisp sound when they played Nashville's 20k-capacity Bridgestone Arena a month ago. The parts blurred together into a muddy din.
Otoh, nine inch nails' sound was album perfect when they played a main stage at Lollapalooza in 2013.
Next summer I'm seeing geddy lee and Alex lifeson reunite rush, with a female drummer from Germany trying to fill Neil peart's shoes, at the United center in Chicago. I think the UC has superior acoustics to bridgestone's.
Basically Will is desperate to have Grok affirm The Narrative about The Gaps, but Grok relentlessly cites sources and makes arguments that "segregation" simply isn't enough to explain The Gaps.
I don't want to over-interpret this, but I believe that a responsibly unwoke Grok could be something of a game-changer in dismantling the lies of The Narrative. Basically the overwhelming dominance of libs in academia and journalism has allowed to cast all dissent from The Narrative as crankish, "misinformation," etc. We are all in the debt of a handful of doughty insurgents (above all Mr. Sailer) for fighting this battle, but individuals can only do so much. In the future, it's quite likely that "common knowledge" will basically consist of whatever the AI bots spit out in answer to people's questions. And if Grok is giving them answers that are closer to reality than to the lies of the woke narrative, that's a good thing.
"doughty insurgents" Lose the first T and you have Will Stancil--or he believes he's an insurgent and not part of the Establishment. I read some of the exchange. He doesn't grok the implications of blaming black violence on modern segregation. He doesn't see the fascistic quality of woke leftism.
He's back,
Back in ethereal groove
I saw neither this post, nor the death that inspired it, coming. My little brother was a proud member of the KISS army. Godspeed to Mr. Frehley.
“Venue acoustics matter (if you find a local spot where loud music sounds good, go back).
- Smaller venues are better.“
On the other hand, large arena acoustics have vastly improved since the late 70’s. E.g. the Super Bowl acoustics for the halftime show, perhaps the largest watched Live annual venue in the US for recording artists, has greatly improved since the 70’s, when it was mostly a few songs by the local marching band, plus a few by jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Since 1993, the first year that the NFL decided to take the Super Bowl Halftime show seriously and had Michael Jackson perform live, it has become an amazing extravaganza watched by tens if not hundreds of millions —and the acoustics now rival the best on earth for any live show. Obviously it has to, for one wrong move or bad note and the entire reputation for quality performance can take a nosedive that might take decades to recover. They still talk about the malfunctioning wardrobe of Janet Jackson in 2004.
At venues like this, it’s almost expected that pure music fans will see THE live performance of their lifetimes; sometimes, they actually do.
And in no small part it’s due to the greatly improved acoustics. Acoustics- they’ve come a long way since the 70’s.
How many are still performing live instead of lip syncing?
If you do dance numbers you are probably lip syncing. For a big pop star tour they always have the backup track ready. Even if you have good technique there is a chance your voice could go or at least be weak any given night. My guess is that it then varies from using the backup track to reenforce the weaker vocal to outright lip syncing.
Metal groups like Metallica aren't lip syncing, and clearly their fans love every second of their shows. Small venues for metal bands would literally shake the s##t out of the building they play in, whereas an arena can better absorb the playing just fine.
I used to (try to) sing in a band in the Bay Area with a seriously devoted metal guitarist. We rented a small rehearsal room (high ceiling but still a small harsh room). This guy would play a triple rectifier through 4 vintage 30s and his feeling was that amplifier tube distortion was the real sound, none of this pussy preamp tube distortion.
The drummer was hard hitting enough to keep up but kept complaining he couldn't hear my vocals but if I turned the gain up on the mic the feedback squeal would begin and he'd complain about that. I was too inexperienced to just sing and a normal volume with earplugs in and just take the complaints.
I honestly do not understand the appeal of music being that loud. Not in the case of these guys but generally it's just a way to cover up poor live musicianship.
in the case of metal and other louder forms of rock, the musicianship is genuine. Slash for instance is a virtuoso at lead guitar. In arenas and other large scale venues, the music is cranked up to 11 and a half (almost to 12) so the many tens of thousands can hear as well as feel the music (esp. the beat).
Excellent point brought up, many lead vocalists in hard rock/metal bands aren't virtuosos at singing (as opposed to opera singers), they tend to be "good enough". From a technical standpoint, was Ozzy Osbourne really that great of a singer? Probably not, but on stage singing live, he was the total package and never seemed to let his loyal fans down. Playing live, its really about putting on a great show, and if you're able to manage to maintain an artistic or musical integrity to the craft, additional bonus points are added.
My summary of 1980s hair metal is "amazing musicians playing boring music". I think Ozzie is amazing. There are different ways to be great singers and great musicians. On one end you have the studio musician/touring musician who can drop in any band and play any style. On the other hand you have guys who can only play a single very distinct style but they somehow put their life and testicles into every note.
There are a lot of great singers who have their voices made mediocre by the engineering. Recently everything is autotuned to hell and I hate it. You'd think this means most modern pop stars can't sing but every time I see a video showing them untuned I tend to conclude, no they sing great and the autotune should be dumped.
Lots of amazing metal singers out there even in the 1980s. Technical perfection is great, but also has a distinct sound. Sometimes a young singer sacrifices his vocal cords for the greater good like Kurt Kobain or that second AC/DC singer. (every time I listen to Back in Black my throat hurts for him)
Absolutely right about acoustics. I was a big fan of The Police and knew all their songs when I saw them as a teenager in 1981 or whenever they toured for Ghost in the Machine, at Riverfront Coliseum, the big indoor arena in Cincinnati. The sound was so awful that I couldn't really tell whether they were actually playing as well as they seemed to be.
My high school music teacher and sometime percussionist for the Cincinnati Symphony somehow got to be backstage for that show and told me that indeed they were... He was particularly impressed by Stewart Copeland's power and virtuosity on drums: at one point, he said, Copeland was thrashing the kick drum so hard that he snapped the coupling on his pedal, then continued to play the bass figure by literally kicking the drum while a roadie popped out to replace the pedal mid-song, apparently used to handling this problem.
As for the 70s Super Bowl halftime shows, I mostly remember being repeatedly appalled by Up With People, a nauseously soulless song-and-dance crew seemingly engineered for the Pat Boone fan base: https://youtu.be/2ruQ1tj4MDA
Second on the amazingness of Stewart Copeland. The Police were a supergroup. I don't much care for Sting's singing (In the Police. In in solo career he sang in his tesstura more) but it's good enough and his bass is great too.
When he was with the Police, it was about putting on a show to fit the image of the band, which was more rock than his solo career. Sting has an amazing voice, though, no matter his iteration, Police or solo.
In the Police he had to sing high to cut through the mix. To me he sounds borderline falsetto in many of those songs. They also do the standard thing of removing all the bass from his vocals so it doesn't "muddy" the mix but to my ears it makes the voice sound thin. It happens in almost all rock music.
> Riverfront Coliseum, the big indoor arena in Cincinnati
April 6, 1982, about 2½ years after a more-famous concert on December 3, 1979
I also saw the Police in that 1979 tour. There were maybe 50 people in my little college town venue. You could tell they were going to be big.
I misremembered it as 1981, but I also saw them at my small college in '79, my only big-name rock concert. There was a contingent from the nearby city, so it wasn't too empty. Roxanne was the only song I'd heard before. Lotta noise from 3 performers. 188 performances in '79.
My sister was an undergraduate at Grinnell in Iowa at that time and went with a fellow member of the entertainment committee to I think Des Moines to give The Police a ride to their concert at the college. (I guess their gear was in a separate vehicle? Dunno.) She said they were super-funny, and she was surprised to learn that one of them was American. There was confused and hilarious discussion about some unfamiliar agricultural crop they saw on the drive: sorghum maybe? Anyway, next thing you know they were doing arenas.
Totally agree with the general sentiments on venue/band selection - although I am in my 40s I still go to around 10 shows a year and stadium/arena venues are usually awful. Way too loud, poor sound quality, and of course ticket prices are outrageous. There have been a few exceptions where somehow a band managed to get the sound right but overall I just don't bother anymore. Fortunately I have a great venue that holds about 900 people less than 10 minutes from my house so it's big enough to attract a decent number of performers that I like, the sound is excellent, and ticket prices are very moderate. I will take a flyer on groups I barely know of just because I know they will sound as good as they can and if I'm not into it the cost was minimal and I can walk out early be home in a few minutes. The other thing with these types of venues is that it's impossible to hide the quality of musicianship - have seen a couple of bands that were getting noticed, appeared on Late Night or something and it was obvious that the studio smoothed out a lot of rough edges. Conversely, there are some that were so good live that I will go see them anytime they are here or in a nearby city.
I envy your situation and attitude. It's so difficult to convince myself to leave the house to see a band especially by myself. Like you I know chances are the live performance will be poor because of the sound engineering. I don't think an open arena intrinsically has poor acoustics. If anything it has no acoustics. Without walls to bounce off you don't get acoustic amplification but you also (thankfully) don't get acoustic distortion. With modern PAs you don't need the acoustic amplification anymore so if a stadium sounds bad that's on whoever selected and installed the PAs and the sound engineers at the event (and the band of course)
And yes a lot of top rock acts are not as good live as their studio work would suggest. That's such a big topic I may just crap out a few paragraphs and put it on my own Substack (Since Substack gives you one when you sign up for Steve)
I have always enjoyed music a lot and listen to it basically all day long at work and in the car (in fact, I have it on now), and for me the emotional response of seeing it live is really rewarding. Obviously sometimes the band or venue sucks, but I have a handful of indoor and outdoor places in my city that have good sound and are relatively easy to get in and out of so I just keep an eye on who is coming and will buy tickets to just about anything I am vaguely interested in. My wife is not as into music as myself but over the years hitting these shows is something we enjoy doing together and we have various friends that like to come along at times as well. When I travel I also check out who might be in that location and have gotten lucky with some fun performances of people I've wanted to see or seen elsewhere that way.
Lived in Austin TX 1970-73, and made it back over the next 10 years to see my two sisters who married Texas boys. What a time to catch up and coming music acts. Fall of '70 went to see Allman Brothers at the football stadium, and like Steve, discovered I was no fan of stadium rock. (But for a state that theoretically had a life sentence for pot, I was amazed at the, umm, pervasive atmosphere.) Highlight was catching a guitar phenom at the Armadillo who I'd never heard of in 1979, but who my sister and her husband worshipped: Stevie Ray Vaughn. But my memories of guys who never went that far, Steve Goodman, John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker and Kinky Friedman are equally treasured.
That all sounds great. Would have loved to hear Stevie Ray Vaughan in his natural environment. John Prine is one of those guys I loved for years without connecting the name to the songs.
I was in 4th grade in 1977 and my parents - shockingly - allowed me to go see KISS with my friend and his mom at the Omni in Atlanta. The costumes, makeup, pyrotechnics, volume, and other effects, like cherry pickers lifting band members high above the stage, were over-the-top. And, on top of all that you had Gene Simmons breathing fire and spitting “blood.” For a 10-year-old boy, it made quite an impression and I still list it as one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.
I don’t think I could name a single KISS song except the aforementioned Rock All Night, but I vaguely remember collecting bubble gum cards as a little kid that once you had them all you got a KISS poster. Gene Simmons may have been one of the all time great marketers. He definitely looked the coolest of the group with his design, Paul Stanley not so much.
I read an apocryphal comment somewhere and no idea if it's true that he had a minor fall several weeks earlier. Bumps and bruises. Then this latest fall was down a giant staircase in his house and he got knocked into a coma and really beat up.
Anyhoo, age related vestibular problems and striking architectural details aren't a good combination. You have to really scale everything back once you hit your seventies. Getting old sucks.
People always ask me why I took up judo in my 50s. Okay fine, people don't ask that often but my older cousin did ask if I was out of my mind. The answer is, learning how to fall, because in another couple decades you'll start doing it and it can be a disaster.
Great minds, tovarich. I was toying with adding to my comment that I did hapkido for a few years (in my 50s!) and thinking that I should practice falls again in preparation for my dotage.
The key I have learned is to alter your life such that you are always on a mat. Hard surfaces are your enemy. My training partner is in his early 30s and asked coach (sensei whatever) why start practicing falls with your butt approaching your heels instead of falling from higher. Coach suggested he try it from waist level. The guy weighs about 280. I would have loved to see him learn by doing but he declined.
Every time I do it, especially when I try my palsied version of the forward roll, I'm amazed at how much easier these things were when I was a kid. Children, even heavy children, fall all the time and just kinda bounce. I honestly wondered as a child how judo could be a martial art when we used to do stuff like that to our friends for fun.
Turns out you just have to become an adult. My brother who is much more of an athlete than I will ever be, told me he couldn't imagine attempting a forward roll. They even sucked for him in his early 20s.
Ace Frehley has joined Ivana Trump and Winston Churchill’s mother in the ranks of People Who Have Died from Falling Down the Stairs.
The dominance of people like Trump, Mamdami, and AOC in national news has made me hum this Ace song with regularity
https://youtu.be/LKdHy18rZcI?si=r6kRnEXUgkWleirH
haha that's actually not bad. I love it when musicians do songs that they have to know would make their fanbase puke.
Thanks for the link!
Great song-has a place on my 'walking playlist' and the one I played for his memory-I can just as easily imagine this playing as JT wanders NY as I can Stayin' Alive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Gun_Tour
KISS played September 1st and 2nd, 1977 at The Summit in Houston:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/kiss/1977/the-summit-houston-tx-1bd64558.html
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/kiss/1977/the-summit-houston-tx-2bd70ca6.html
Styx opened for KISS:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/styx/1977/the-summit-houston-tx-bc5512e.html
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/styx/1977/the-summit-houston-tx-1bc5512c.html
Gene certainly had an eye for talent as he also had Van Halen and about a dozen other well-known bands open for KISS over the years. The funny thing about that is that while it's cool to say that you saw a band open well before anyone else ever heard of them, the drawback is that they are playing songs you've never heard of. Styx played Come Sail Away but their monster hits would come later.
Of course in the end Styx (and Van Halen) had more monster hits than KISS ever did; Steve's comment about only recognizing Rock and Roll All Nite is probably not off the mark as I Was Made for Lovin' You didn't come until later. Beth was a big hit of that time but wasn't a rock song per se. It was part of their encore and was objectively their biggest hit even though Gene hated it as it was Peter's baby
The opening act for all the previous dates on the Love Gun Tour was Cheap Trick. It switched to Styx for the last dates in Texas. Styx was touring on their commercial breakthrough album "The Grand Illusion".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Illusion
Styx - The Grand Illusion playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lFI8Niz0KvEK_YdIo-ixA464L3jVaF2Go
I never saw a KISS concert, and I don't know a single one of their songs. But in the late 1960s, I knew their "Demon," when he called himself Gene Klein and was a science fiction/comics book fan. I couldn't have projected that fellow's future, but I assume he's had a good time.
How did you know him?
Also prefer small venues but not for the acoustics. The acoustics of a small venue are likely awful as well. Anyway your problem with stadiums was not likely due to poor acoustics of the venue. A stadium without a roof doesn't have much in the way of acoustics. But in 1997 PAs weren't all that great and in a stadium you'd be pretty dependent on them. You're pretty much listening to a rock show over your nearest PA speaker while watching the band pantomime in the distance.
You've inspired me to write my own post on why live music sucks.
My favorite Kiss song was "God of Thunder" which I found on the Double Platinum album I accidentally ordered from the Columbia record and tape club. Later I saw a TV show in which they fought robot doppelgängers at an amusement park. Right up there with the Star Wars Christmas special. I had a friend who was a super fan but I never thought much of them.
I guess Detroit Rock City is pretty good too.
The Police OTOH are among the best of all times.
Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dFByQyA49I&list=RD1dFByQyA49I&start_radio=1
Upon further adult review, still their best song by far.
"Smaller venues are better."
That is SO true. Last December, my son and I saw Billy Gibbons and Jimmy Vaughn in a little club here in Fort Worth called Tannahills. There were maybe 250 people. It was amazing. The sound was perfect. I've probably seen ZZ Top a half dozen times over the years, and seen the Fabulous Thunderbirds a couple. But this was easily the best sounding show I've seen for either of them. And it was nice being within 20 feet of the stage without a massive crowd.
Trent reznor is known as a perfectionist with sound systems, but Nine inch nails did not have a crisp sound when they played Nashville's 20k-capacity Bridgestone Arena a month ago. The parts blurred together into a muddy din.
Otoh, nine inch nails' sound was album perfect when they played a main stage at Lollapalooza in 2013.
Next summer I'm seeing geddy lee and Alex lifeson reunite rush, with a female drummer from Germany trying to fill Neil peart's shoes, at the United center in Chicago. I think the UC has superior acoustics to bridgestone's.
Somewhat off-topic: Will Stancil is the news for other reasons, but his dialogue with Grok here is interesting:
https://x.com/whstancil/status/1981755425910562976
(scroll up for the beginning of the exchange)
Basically Will is desperate to have Grok affirm The Narrative about The Gaps, but Grok relentlessly cites sources and makes arguments that "segregation" simply isn't enough to explain The Gaps.
I don't want to over-interpret this, but I believe that a responsibly unwoke Grok could be something of a game-changer in dismantling the lies of The Narrative. Basically the overwhelming dominance of libs in academia and journalism has allowed to cast all dissent from The Narrative as crankish, "misinformation," etc. We are all in the debt of a handful of doughty insurgents (above all Mr. Sailer) for fighting this battle, but individuals can only do so much. In the future, it's quite likely that "common knowledge" will basically consist of whatever the AI bots spit out in answer to people's questions. And if Grok is giving them answers that are closer to reality than to the lies of the woke narrative, that's a good thing.
"doughty insurgents" Lose the first T and you have Will Stancil--or he believes he's an insurgent and not part of the Establishment. I read some of the exchange. He doesn't grok the implications of blaming black violence on modern segregation. He doesn't see the fascistic quality of woke leftism.