Red Mosquito

How is a prompter any different than a notebook with lyrics? What's wrong with a singer getting help remembering the words? And why would anyone rather here then stumble instead of sing them correctly? Note I'm not against deliberately changing things in a live setting there's nothing charming or romantic about Eddie starting to sing verse one when he's on verse two and then going "ah shit "

cutuphalfdead wrote:How is a prompter any different than a notebook with lyrics? What's wrong with a singer getting help remembering the words? And why would anyone rather here then stumble instead of sing them correctly? Note I'm not against deliberately changing things in a live setting there's nothing charming or romantic about Eddie starting to sing verse one when he's on verse two and then going "ah shit "

Agreed.

Michael Stipe used the prompter throughout his career (he openly admits to needing it as he forgets lyrics often) and I always found R.E.M. shows to be very clean, tight and, well, professional.

Sorry for the typos in that post. Posting from the phone.

Don't worry about it, chud. They were hardly noticeable!

Kaius wrote:Don't worry about it, chud. They were hardly noticeable!

You monster.

I wholeheartedly agree Chud.

I agree to a point. Ed's forgetting songs he has sung a million times can be frustrating. I also dont really care for super tight and polished. Just the way I like my Rock n Roll. Ed's forgetting of lyrics is a bit overboard though.

cutuphalfdead wrote:How is a prompter any different than a notebook with lyrics? What's wrong with a singer getting help remembering the words? And why would anyone rather here then stumble instead of sing them correctly? Note I'm not against deliberately changing things in a live setting there's nothing charming or romantic about Eddie starting to sing verse one when he's on verse two and then going "ah shit "

My point was more towards the hour and fifty minute standard set list than the teleprompter. I'd take any show off the last tour over a tight 22 song performance with teleprompter. Also, it's not like Ed uses the lyric book for every song or even most songs. It's not a standard thing by any stretch.

I guess it's a personal preference but I still love live PJ and hope they continue with the marathon shows. The more the merrier for me

I wouldn't be opposed to Ed having a teleprompter nor each member having charts if it meant tighter performances and less errors.

And Ed needs to ease off on the sauce.

I sat behind the stage in Seattle and he has a ton of notecards, he just doesn't use them effectively.

has vedder reached the fat elvis stage of his career yet

Like I said upthread, I don't think the marathon shows are necessarily the problem in and of themselves, it's the lack of preparation and the sheer number of different songs being played.

I wouldn't have any problem at all with them playing 3 hour sets if they cut back on some of the variety from show to show and stuck to a well-rehearsed core setlist with a few surprises each night.

SJM wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:How is a prompter any different than a notebook with lyrics? What's wrong with a singer getting help remembering the words? And why would anyone rather here then stumble instead of sing them correctly? Note I'm not against deliberately changing things in a live setting there's nothing charming or romantic about Eddie starting to sing verse one when he's on verse two and then going "ah shit "

My point was more towards the hour and fifty minute standard set list than the teleprompter. I'd take any show off the last tour over a tight 22 song performance with teleprompter. Also, it's not like Ed uses the lyric book for every song or even most songs. It's not a standard thing by any stretch.

I guess it's a personal preference but I still love live PJ and hope they continue with the marathon shows. The more the merrier for me

Quality over quantity, bro.

Birds in Hell wrote:Like I said upthread, I don't think the marathon shows are necessarily the problem in and of themselves, it's the lack of preparation and the sheer number of different songs being played.

I wouldn't have any problem at all with them playing 3 hour sets if they cut back on some of the variety from show to show and stuck to a well-rehearsed core setlist with a few surprises each night.

Exactly. I'm all for them (or any band, really) playing as many songs as they can without sacrificing the quality of the performance.

I just think it's ridiculous that someone would take 30 sloppy performances over 25 tight ones.

cutuphalfdead wrote:I just think it's ridiculous that someone would take 30 sloppy performances over 25 tight ones.

well, maybe there is like 20 tight performances, 5 sub par and 5 sloppy performances.

Id take that over 25 tight performances of the same set.

Ugh, it's Pearl Jam, who cares.

B wrote:I wish I didn't hate DMB. I think they do pretty well by their fans.

they are pretty great. the best part is they play great songs. i'm not sure they'd play an entire album front to back, but their live show is just as good as pearl jam's at this point. i read a while ago dave matthews stopped smoking to improve his vocals. his voice was never as good as eddie vedder's, but i dont think its declined as much either. their live shows are just unpredictable. whether its the setlist or rearranging a song or doing a weird cover, its pretty clear to see why dmb's live shows are so highly regarded.

reading some of the comments in this thread you'd almost forget that they just had two tours where the performances were almost universally praised by the people that were there.

Yeah, Europe 2014 and the Fall US tour were all pretty good. Much better than the trainwreck of the US 2013 fall tour