IMHO this past 12 months of shows and boots has really got the fullest most rounded, most earth-shaking sound that PJ has ever had or even come close to, either live or in studio. It may be to do with changes in playing (I'm not an expert on this) or to do with Matt's kit being miked up properly (in stereo with a bloody good bass sound?).
Anwyays, to my ears Matt is currently PJ's missing link put right back in at the right time and the right place (now achieving what he's done with SG), and overall I think the songs are getting heavier and speedier (almost breakneck!) because the entire band is so charged up with the material, how fuckin good they (know) they sound, and being back at the top of the global playlist, -finally getting the mainstream credit they deserve (which fell away around 95, when they sensibly ducked out of getting 'papped' to death).
Anyway, the drumming currently is fucking brilliant - for a start you can actually HEAR it really clearly in the mix, and I think Matt is leading the charge (slightly ahead of the wave?), but it's because the band are tight as it fucking gets, and they are working more like a living breathing combined force, rather than some typical loose collection of individuals. It's not surprising tho, considering where they and we have been;come from, and come through.
(stop me if I'm going too far here won't ya!?)
Anyway, this is Rocknroll par excellence - I've never heard better. and this view is being supported by lots of other members in lots of other threads I believe.
I've got Not4U, MSG2 playing as I type and Matt is bang on the money - nailing it to the f'in floor. Top work!
[If you wanna see a 'prima donna' stare - go see Van Morrison - I've seen him walk off mid-set and not come back several times cos he's pissed off with either the band, the overall mood, or the audience, and he glares at anyone in his band who doesn't hang on his every hand gesture.
The funniest I've seen was when two people in the (small) audience started shouting at each other to sit down etc, and one guy said "I'm just trying to enjoy the music", to which Van interjected with the microphone 'Well why don't you sit down and shut the fuck up then!!'
Then when the guy started arguing he was physically removed by 6 burly security men. V. funny!
Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
well some songs sound better faster, but i miss the groove that solat had in the past
like wise with other songs, even flow to
I miss those songs too.
Specifically SOLAT, Evenflow, Glorified G, Rats, Blood, Dissident, WMA, Leash, and some other songs.
But that's not so much a speed thing though. Matt plays the songs completely differently, re-written so to speak, so I consider them "New Solat" and "New Glorified G" and so on.
Songs like Evolution and some other Jack Irons songs were so basic that it didn't matter who is playing them because they are so basic, but a lot of songs lost amazingly constructed drum parts. ...and I'd feel the same way if someone replaced Matt and decided to play Grievance and Got Some in a significantly different way.
I'd pay $200 for a ticket to see the songs either with theydrummers I preferred the style of (including MC on his own material), or with MC playing the drums on all the songs, but the way I liked hearing the songs performed before he changed them. ...easily, $200 for 1 ticket to hear this.
ADD 5,200 to the post count you see, thank you.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
IMHO this past 12 months of shows and boots has really got the fullest most rounded, most earth-shaking sound that PJ has ever had or even come close to, either live or in studio. It may be to do with changes in playing (I'm not an expert on this) or to do with Matt's kit being miked up properly (in stereo with a bloody good bass sound?).
Anwyays, to my ears Matt is currently PJ's missing link put right back in at the right time and the right place (now achieving what he's done with SG), and overall I think the songs are getting heavier and speedier (almost breakneck!) because the entire band is so charged up with the material, how fuckin good they (know) they sound, and being back at the top of the global playlist, -finally getting the mainstream credit they deserve (which fell away around 95, when they sensibly ducked out of getting 'papped' to death).
Anyway, the drumming currently is fucking brilliant - for a start you can actually HEAR it really clearly in the mix, and I think Matt is leading the charge (slightly ahead of the wave?), but it's because the band are tight as it fucking gets, and they are working more like a living breathing combined force, rather than some typical loose collection of individuals. It's not surprising tho, considering where they and we have been;come from, and come through.
(stop me if I'm going too far here won't ya!?)
Anyway, this is Rocknroll par excellence - I've never heard better. and this view is being supported by lots of other members in lots of other threads I believe.
I've got Not4U, MSG2 playing as I type and Matt is bang on the money - nailing it to the f'in floor. Top work!
[If you wanna see a 'prima donna' stare - go see Van Morrison - I've seen him walk off mid-set and not come back several times cos he's pissed off with either the band, the overall mood, or the audience, and he glares at anyone in his band who doesn't hang on his every hand gesture.
The funniest I've seen was when two people in the (small) audience started shouting at each other to sit down etc, and one guy said "I'm just trying to enjoy the music", to which Van interjected with the microphone 'Well why don't you sit down and shut the fuck up then!!'
Then when the guy started arguing he was physically removed by 6 burly security men. V. funny!
QFT
I noticed that matt has alot more drum Mics now and its definitely apparent in these new boots. his drumming sounds sooo good in the mix. And I know ive said this before, but matt is playing like a freakin mutant now.
I think ALOT of it has to do with him playing in Soundgarden now. He's on fucking fire now. Plus that new snare hes using sounds amazing.
Severed Hand is the worst victim of speeding up the tempo live. They play it like they play Lukin. It sounds like they want to just get it over with. Ultimately, one has to stand back, not comparing live vs. studio, or this version or that version, and just ask the question, "Did that sound good?" In the case of sped up Severed Hand, Gorge Box Set, for example, my answer is, no, It didn't sound good. It sounded rushed. Like they were trying to make a song quota within a narrow timeframe. It didn't sound natural.
Listen to Seattle night 1, 2000 vs. Seattle night 2, 2000. Seattle 1, they sped everything until Crown of Thorns. Sounded unnatural. The crowd wasn't great and I'm wondering if the sped up versions were losing people. Night 2 was more relaxed and I think the crowd responded better.
Up here so high I start to shake, Up here so high the sky I scrape, I've no fear but for falling down, So look out below I am falling now, Falling down,...not staying down, Could’ve held me up, rather tear me down, Drown in the river
Ultimately, one has to stand back, not comparing live vs. studio, or this version or that version, and just ask the question, "Did that sound good?"
Great point!
...though, especially with new fans every day, they may hear a speedy-version of a song and like it, and when they hear the original tempo or whatnot, they might like whatever they were exposed to first.
ADD 5,200 to the post count you see, thank you.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
I noticed that matt has alot more drum Mics now and its definitely apparent in these new boots. his drumming sounds sooo good in the mix. And I know ive said this before, but matt is playing like a freakin mutant now.
I think ALOT of it has to do with him playing in Soundgarden now. He's on fucking fire now. Plus that new snare hes using sounds amazing.
Thanks (seriously!), I just learned what QFT means - not great at Internet speak - must have been asleep at the back for that lesson - or maybe washing my fucking hair on that day too! I thought CJ said it well too though - it's obviously a big matter of taste.
I concur- 'Matt is on fucking fire', there's no two ways about it!
Post edited by tremors on
Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Songs are a lot faster now on a number of them. I don't know if it's Matt who is to blame, but some of the old songs that had some character with the mid-tempo are now being played like they just want to get them done with.
yup...you will find that MOST of the songs people bitch about are started by either Ed or Mike. The only song counted off by the drummer that was significantly changed with Matt's arrival is Even Flow...which is obviously intentional. If you listen closely on the 2010 dates, especially MSG II...you can hear that Matt actually drags the tempos down a little bit (for shits sake listen to how fast Mike starts Given to Fly)
"Well, I think this band is incapable of sucking."
-my dad after hearing Not for You for the first time on SNL .
Songs are a lot faster now on a number of them. I don't know if it's Matt who is to blame, but some of the old songs that had some character with the mid-tempo are now being played like they just want to get them done with.
yup...you will find that MOST of the songs people bitch about are started by either Ed or Mike. The only song counted off by the drummer that was significantly changed with Matt's arrival is Even Flow...which is obviously intentional. If you listen closely on the 2010 dates, especially MSG II...you can hear that Matt actually drags the tempos down a little bit (for shits sake listen to how fast Mike starts Given to Fly)
You could say that most songs are "counted off" by the guitar opening, but when you're jamming, the drummer keeps the tempo. So lets say that a song starts off slowly in the 90's, and lets say for the sake of discussion that Matt likes to play a particular song faster. The result is the rest of the band has to keep up, so they get used to playing it faster. Well, that means that over time the intro will be played a bit faster to match the speed at which they are now playing it.
...in the above case, Matt is the one influencing the speed, because he's influencing how it's played for the majority of the previous times he's played it with them.
However, this is a hard to prove suggestion I'm making, and would take way too much time to figure out decisively. It's easy to compare drum-hits to other drummers to see how things have dramatically changed, but who is ultimately responsible for tempo could be a discussion they've had, or it could have changed over time organically.
But as a drummer of 25 years, I can tell you the drummer has the most influence on the tempo a song is played at, if tempo wasn't specifically discussed.
I'm not concerned so much with speed, as to if I enjoy the sound of the song (as someone said earlier).
ADD 5,200 to the post count you see, thank you.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
Personally if I could change one thing about tempo, it would be for Mike to get back to hıs blues roots more. Sometimes İ feel like he rushes his solos.
I don't know if this was said before but did anyone suggest that the sped up tempo is related to concert flow? Concerts have to have a flow. If every song is played in a different tempo then that will ruin the flow of the show. Not that they should be all the same tempo but each song kind of has to groove with one another. DJ's do this too all the time. Theres a thing called BPM - beats per minute. On a lot of DJ equipment you can see the BPM of the song and DJ's adjust the tempo of the songs to match the previous ones. So if the last song had 150 BPM and the next one has 120, he will speed up the tempo slightly, say to 140 to kind of match the last song. This way there wont be a break in the flow of dancing and shit.
Now Pearl Jam doesn't have a bpm counter obviously but I believe they do the same thing to not break the flow. They are truly masterful in the way they can create and sustain a perfect concert energy and flow.
Personally I love how most of the shit is sped up. Songs like Severed Hand which is a lot faster than the studio version is much better live b/c of its break neck speed. In fact I didnt fall in love with that song until I heard it live. If they played songs at the studio pace, well I think that would be a SLOWWWW and boring show.
And matt did slightly slow down even flow at msg 2010 - not as slow as the snail paced studio version but it sounded great.
If you want to get people moving and shit you need SPEED.
phew, for a minute then I thought you were gonna suggest PJ get a drum machine.
I reckon they play as hard as they can until they are close to collapse, then slow it down so everyone can catch their breath, then quickly take off before we're all broken apart and weeping in the aisles. away, away......!
Cancel my subscription to the Ressurection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Comments
like wise with other songs, even flow to
Anwyays, to my ears Matt is currently PJ's missing link put right back in at the right time and the right place (now achieving what he's done with SG), and overall I think the songs are getting heavier and speedier (almost breakneck!) because the entire band is so charged up with the material, how fuckin good they (know) they sound, and being back at the top of the global playlist, -finally getting the mainstream credit they deserve (which fell away around 95, when they sensibly ducked out of getting 'papped' to death).
Anyway, the drumming currently is fucking brilliant - for a start you can actually HEAR it really clearly in the mix, and I think Matt is leading the charge (slightly ahead of the wave?), but it's because the band are tight as it fucking gets, and they are working more like a living breathing combined force, rather than some typical loose collection of individuals. It's not surprising tho, considering where they and we have been;come from, and come through.
(stop me if I'm going too far here won't ya!?)
Anyway, this is Rocknroll par excellence - I've never heard better. and this view is being supported by lots of other members in lots of other threads I believe.
I've got Not4U, MSG2 playing as I type and Matt is bang on the money - nailing it to the f'in floor. Top work!
[If you wanna see a 'prima donna' stare - go see Van Morrison - I've seen him walk off mid-set and not come back several times cos he's pissed off with either the band, the overall mood, or the audience, and he glares at anyone in his band who doesn't hang on his every hand gesture.
The funniest I've seen was when two people in the (small) audience started shouting at each other to sit down etc, and one guy said "I'm just trying to enjoy the music", to which Van interjected with the microphone 'Well why don't you sit down and shut the fuck up then!!'
Then when the guy started arguing he was physically removed by 6 burly security men. V. funny!
Send my credentials to the house of detention
I miss those songs too.
Specifically SOLAT, Evenflow, Glorified G, Rats, Blood, Dissident, WMA, Leash, and some other songs.
But that's not so much a speed thing though. Matt plays the songs completely differently, re-written so to speak, so I consider them "New Solat" and "New Glorified G" and so on.
Songs like Evolution and some other Jack Irons songs were so basic that it didn't matter who is playing them because they are so basic, but a lot of songs lost amazingly constructed drum parts. ...and I'd feel the same way if someone replaced Matt and decided to play Grievance and Got Some in a significantly different way.
I'd pay $200 for a ticket to see the songs either with theydrummers I preferred the style of (including MC on his own material), or with MC playing the drums on all the songs, but the way I liked hearing the songs performed before he changed them. ...easily, $200 for 1 ticket to hear this.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
QFT
I noticed that matt has alot more drum Mics now and its definitely apparent in these new boots. his drumming sounds sooo good in the mix. And I know ive said this before, but matt is playing like a freakin mutant now.
I think ALOT of it has to do with him playing in Soundgarden now. He's on fucking fire now. Plus that new snare hes using sounds amazing.
8/7/08, 6/9/09
Listen to Seattle night 1, 2000 vs. Seattle night 2, 2000. Seattle 1, they sped everything until Crown of Thorns. Sounded unnatural. The crowd wasn't great and I'm wondering if the sped up versions were losing people. Night 2 was more relaxed and I think the crowd responded better.
Great point!
...though, especially with new fans every day, they may hear a speedy-version of a song and like it, and when they hear the original tempo or whatnot, they might like whatever they were exposed to first.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
Fascinating discussion here. Less "who to blame" than usual, and more "let's discuss the pros!"
Fine work, everyone. Carry on.
Thanks (seriously!), I just learned what QFT means
I concur- 'Matt is on fucking fire', there's no two ways about it!
Send my credentials to the house of detention
yup...you will find that MOST of the songs people bitch about are started by either Ed or Mike. The only song counted off by the drummer that was significantly changed with Matt's arrival is Even Flow...which is obviously intentional. If you listen closely on the 2010 dates, especially MSG II...you can hear that Matt actually drags the tempos down a little bit (for shits sake listen to how fast Mike starts Given to Fly)
-my dad after hearing Not for You for the first time on SNL .
You could say that most songs are "counted off" by the guitar opening, but when you're jamming, the drummer keeps the tempo. So lets say that a song starts off slowly in the 90's, and lets say for the sake of discussion that Matt likes to play a particular song faster. The result is the rest of the band has to keep up, so they get used to playing it faster. Well, that means that over time the intro will be played a bit faster to match the speed at which they are now playing it.
...in the above case, Matt is the one influencing the speed, because he's influencing how it's played for the majority of the previous times he's played it with them.
However, this is a hard to prove suggestion I'm making, and would take way too much time to figure out decisively. It's easy to compare drum-hits to other drummers to see how things have dramatically changed, but who is ultimately responsible for tempo could be a discussion they've had, or it could have changed over time organically.
But as a drummer of 25 years, I can tell you the drummer has the most influence on the tempo a song is played at, if tempo wasn't specifically discussed.
I'm not concerned so much with speed, as to if I enjoy the sound of the song (as someone said earlier).
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
Thanks
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Now Pearl Jam doesn't have a bpm counter obviously but I believe they do the same thing to not break the flow. They are truly masterful in the way they can create and sustain a perfect concert energy and flow.
Personally I love how most of the shit is sped up. Songs like Severed Hand which is a lot faster than the studio version is much better live b/c of its break neck speed. In fact I didnt fall in love with that song until I heard it live. If they played songs at the studio pace, well I think that would be a SLOWWWW and boring show.
And matt did slightly slow down even flow at msg 2010 - not as slow as the snail paced studio version but it sounded great.
If you want to get people moving and shit you need SPEED.
I reckon they play as hard as they can until they are close to collapse, then slow it down so everyone can catch their breath, then quickly take off before we're all broken apart and weeping in the aisles. away, away......!
Send my credentials to the house of detention