Chiodos Band • Page 8

craig owens continues to be an absolute loser

on another note i jammed illuminaudio the other day and its crazy how far ahead that album is from the rest of their stuff. brandon fit em like a glove vocally

 

Alright but hear me out: an actual Chiodos reunion where they play Illuminaudio songs

EDIT: jinx @onionbubs

 

Hell yea gimme Illuminaudio

 

its still so good. even disregarding craigs absence its also j the rest of the members most consistently surprising and engaging album. the heavier parts twist the bands sound into so many fun new shapes

so dope they were able to turn thermacare into the much better stratovolcano mouth, the latter of which is probably their best song

 

It's pretty wild because the two latest DRUGS albums are totally fine and honestly enjoyable, but there is no reason to have it be DRUGS instead of a new band name for the new band that it is

 

Not to be that guy but have we gotten any alternate theory behind why he might have been syncing (illness, etc)? It’s not like this is something that has plagued him his entire career, it’s a relatively unique circumstance being a festival, it’s seemingly the first time, and he’s always been a strong frontman otherwise. The band members thing is a rough look but at the end of the day most people there don’t care and he’s always put on a good show live. idk, obviously this fits a long-standing, if somewhat vague, narrative but it begs more questions.

 

It's a fair point

 

Someone on the tour thread already said he was lip syncing at the Drugs show a few months ago. Chiodos screwed up by kicking out Brandon at least he sounded excited about what the band was going to do next.

 

Curiosity got the best of me and I watched some videos from WWWY.

I could not believe how loud the vocal tracks were, at that point you're just lip syncing. What I didn't anticipate was catching guitars continue to play when the guys on stage were either playing something completely different or not playing at all.

This whole thing is bizarre. Legally speaking, how did Craig get away with getting this labeled as a Chiodos performance?!

 

Apparently he has rights to the Chiodos name and can do whatever he wants. I don't see the legal issue if all the other band members left/sold off their rights.

 

Oh of course, morally I disagree.. but legally, can't argue with that.

 

So nothing was real? Maybe the drums? I don't know how you fake that without making a garbled mess of sound.

 

Craig is a shitty person and this fits his M.O. No need to give him any benefit of the doubt.

 

I think it's just because using backing tracks has become less and less of an issue. Pop stars have been using backing tracks while also having live mics for a long time, so it's not surprising that it's creeping into different scenes.

 

But he doesn’t really have a live mic here. Or it appears to be off during the songs

 

This isn't a backing track. It's the whole-ass lead vocal lol

 

Backing tracks for instruments have been taking over for a really long time, but using them for lead vocals is hilariously deceptive (at least in this case, since this is a sham on a sham)

 

Ah yeah, admittedly I haven't watched the video, I assumed his mic was on to some degree. That is disappointing for the fans, but nothing Craig has done since his first split with Chiodos has won back any favor with me, so totally unsurprising.

 

Y'all remember the time Sleeping With Sirens lead vocal and guitar tracks accidentally got played out loud over the Warped Tour livestream during line check? Rocked.

 

But in that instance Kellen’s mic was at least on and he was singing some parts so it was less embarrasing

 

It is interesting though, because fans, even people in this thread, admitted to having a good time, so where's the line? As a performer do you do your best to try and give the crowd the best possible live show? Even if it's underwhelming, at least it was all being performed live? Or do you use "assistance" to try and help the crowd have a more enjoyable experience?

It seems to be a sliding scale from the low end being drummers playing to a track, all the way up to nothing being played live.

While I don't agree with what Chiodos/Craig did, I do understand the reasoning, especially if it's becoming more and more the norm.

 

I don’t care at all about a backtracking, I’m sure it has its benefits for the performer, but I would be very mad if I spent money on lip synching

 

I gotta admit I saw drugs this summer and I had questions then if he was lip synching. I've seen him 15+ times over the years in all different iterations and I've never had that thought before, so I don't know it's interesting I'm not sure why he would lean into it now.

As for the whole issue with who's actually in the bands, it doesn't matter as much to me for drugs. I remember when the band was first forming Craig made it clear he was the holding the name. It does bother me for Chiodos though. My guess is there was some kind of pay day for them to let go of the name and let him do this.

 

I too am skeptical about the instruments being tracked or not. There was def something added, but I can’t tell to what degree. Wouldn’t surprise me either way, if they were live or mostly dubbed.

I spend the entire set checked out of being invested in the return of Chiodos and instead spent the whole time watching for signs of using tracks. What I think what was going on with Craig - his mic WAS on, but he largely either mimed it or sang bits but the track was so loud and prominent that you couldn’t really tell either way.

And I don’t get the sentiment that it’s “normal” to have backing tracks, or to this degree. Maybe for your pop acts and rap/hip hop stuff, but not in this scene and genre. Claudio was struggling a bit on Sat, seems like he was getting gassed vocally, but it was 100% live. Buddy sounded like crap, but 100% live. Adam and John were whatever you’d consider them to be, but they were 100% live. Matt from Emery seemed like he was screaming for Josh and I could tell the difference because it was 100% live. Pumping in an instrument track because you kicked out a member (like in underoath’s case) is one thing, but Chiodos from a “live” perspective felt totally artificial and empty and soulless and just a lie

 

Ok, found this. Another clear mess up by Craig showing how much of what people heard was a track and how little his mic was piped in
https://youtube.com/shorts/WVUEFli-ErY?si=S8Vmjzf9E-wHgUYp

You can SLIGHTLY hear his mic when he sings when he shouldn’t have, compare that with how dominant that track is. Easy to hide whenever he didn’t want to actually sing, which was a lot