Bad opinions • Page 928

This can work really well! I guess part of what I like about live music is the possibility of surprise and spontaneity and full-album shows kind of preclude that. I'd guess it's less exciting for most of the musicians, as well. But I guess it speaks to the larger shift in fan culture/engagement that is sort of generally alienating (to me). "Band plays [album] in full!" type shows didn't really exist a decade ago AFAIK.

 

I mean, be selective about the shows. If the album is well-sequenced and ends strong, a full album show can be amazing. If it's frontloaded and peters out, so will the show.

Seeing Motion City Soundtrack do I Am the Movie and Commit This to Memory in the same night and close with "Hold Me Down" was religious.

 

i think a big factor here is where the artists are in their careers. For any band that has 5+ albums under their belt, their set list is largely going to be the same from there on out for a long time, so an album show sounds refreshing (unless it’s an old album they already draw *heavily* from like underoath, taking back Sunday, anberlin, etc). I didn’t see TBS’s tidal wave tour but even though I don’t care for a quarter-to-half of it, it would’ve been awesome bc I’m so sick of the rest of the set. An underoath Voyeurist tour would have been one of their best shows ever. Same for anberlin playing lowborn. Those bands are never gonna give us a deep cuts set, but surely many bands playing their newest records (often ostensibly made to draw new fans) makes some level of economic sense?

 

this reminds me of when i saw wolf alice in september and the person next to me said it was his first concert. we chatted about the bands latest record and they asked how concerts worked; ie, if they would play the new record. i told them that they typically dont do the whole album but expect a good chunk of the set to be it, plus some of their best songs from other albums

wolf alice ended up sprinkling every song but the closer in that set somehow, while still representing so many diff eras. super cool. the person left before encore though; i wish i told them that there will be more songs after they “end” a set if they wait!

 

I saw Blue October when they released Sway, and they played nearly every song from the album plus a wide variety of other songs, and it was incredible.

I feel if a band can pull it off and make each song exciting, then it's a fantastic way to experience their work.

 

Interspersing your entire new album throughout a set is fine, it's more the phenomenon of "[x] plays [whatever]" type sets I'm talking about. if I like a band I'd rather trust their judgment to pick an interesting set than just recreate an album in sequence. if I want that I can.......listen to the album lol

 

Maybe this is at the core of my issue - I'm not at all inclined to see any band so often that I'd get sick of seeing anything in particular live. Don't think I've ever seen anyone more than twice. There are too many good bands!

 

i think the only full album set i've ever seen was trail of dead doing source tags & codes for the 10th anniversary... i love more trail of dead than most but that was a welcome album-oriented set

 

I like full album shows because in my experience in most cases it’s a chance to hear songs they would absolutely never play otherwise.

In general I think the majority of bands cater (non full album) live shows too hard to their casual fans. There is absolutely no reason The National shouldn’t play more deep cuts at this point, they’ve been A listers for a decade and a half and a significant portion of any crowd they play to is going to be quite familiar with 4+ of their albums. Gotta give the audience more credit than they do.

 

sounds fucking awesome honestly.

tbh some of my favorite shows I’ve ever been to were album-oriented— Circa doing Juturna, The Early November doing TRTC and TMTMTP (tho the latter was sadly but understandably just select tracks and not the full record in order), and Motion City doing CTTM. and there are plenty of records I would love to see performed in full if the chance was ever presented. and I would kill to go back in time and witness this show:

agreed 100%

 

way more bands should walk onstage and just play one song for 30 mins imo

 

I think full album shows can be a great way to hear the more rare album cuts that don't make it onto traditional setlists often

 

I saw Thursday play full collapse back in September and they played the chorus of understanding in a car crash again after the last song before they walked off and it was awesome. They did come back out for an encore and play 4-5 more songs after.

 

I liked that when Tegan & Sara did it for The Con it was all re-imagined versions. Definitely agree it depends on the album and the artist

 

Wilco Being There in full with surprise Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in full as the encore gotta be my most elite show ever

 

This is a good point, especially for bigger bands.

they didn’t play that many encore songs at my show, and Thursday is another band where I am nauseated by the amount of full collapse they play, but that transition into the last chorus was epic.

 

The way NFG did it was kinda cool, they played two albums every night but totally mixed up the songs from both albums instead of just playing both straight through

 

New topic: I think too many rappers that are actually good live rappers now use bands instead of DJs. Using bands can be great and it felt fresh at first, but honestly a good DJ and rapper combo just hits harder. This is especially true when the beats themselves are highlights and not just utilitarian.

 

I think I've seen 3 full album shows and they were all approached differently.

I saw Strung Out play Twisted by Design, which was a bit odd as that album kind of slumps through the middle. They were brilliant live and threw a couple of other favourites in at the end though. I'd rather have seen them play a more normal set, as they're very good live.

I saw Funeral for a Friend at their original goodbye show, where they played their first album in full. That album is pretty strong start to finish and even though I've seen them live many times, there were still songs from that album I'd never seen them play. They also brought some of the original members out for certain songs too. That was a good show.

Then there was The Ataris. In theory it should have been good. It was So Long Astoria in full, but played out of sequence, so it was at least freshened up in that sense. Kris also allowed fans to shout out songs at the end and played a bunch of stuff from other albums too. Unfortunately, Kris also decided to change a load of lyrics to be cruel to his ex wife, which was rankly embarrassing. He also chastised fans for shouting out songs he didn't like after asking for requests. So yeah, not great.

 

ha yeah this is another part of my issue w/ shows like these...the vast majority of albums are just not front-to-back killer. I definitely don't mind the concept as much being used for absolutely legendary albums (like the Source Tags & Codes and Downward Spiral shows mentioned above).

the only two times I've seen album shows was out of convenience and both times it led me to the conclusion that "this album is too long with too many songs that are cool but essentially interchangeable" (Fucked Up doing David Comes to Life and TA doing The Monitor). In both bases I'd seen the bands do conventional sets previously and had a much more enjoyable time.

 

Good use of the thread lol

 

Haha. Is it an unpopular take that their later work has greatly improved? :D

 

I saw Mae do The Everglow in full but they did it differently, the first like 3 songs they played were from other albums and then they started the album set.

Coheed and BTBAM are two bands I've seen play flawless full album shows

 

It depends on the kind of rap for me. If the beats are more jazzy or actually live-feeling even in the studio version then a live band sounds amazing, but when it's a live band trying to recreate like trap beats I definitely agree with you

 

Am i crazy or did rappers not used to have their exact vocal track playing when they perform live? Like adlibs/background vocals are one thing. But I see so many clips now of rappers who seem to just be rapping along to their own songs, rather than “performing” them live. It’s very odd and I feel like I’ve only ever seen it within the past ~5yrs