Ornoth

Reflecting back on the hundreds—if not thousands—of concerts I've been to, there are a couple that stand out as tremendously disappointing, and they have quite a bit in common.

In September 1984 I saw Yes in Portland ME, touring in support of their immensely popular 90125 album. My date and I wound up leaving toward the end of the show when she freaked out after losing a treasured piece of jewelry.

A year later, my future wife and I were at the very first show in Rush's Power Windows tour, coincidentally also at the Portland civic center. We were at the edge of the stage when—during their single "Big Money"—fake dollars bearing the band's portraits rained down from the rafters above us.

These were both widely-known and unquestionably talented groups near the height of their popularity, with a huge back catalog of hits, videos in constant rotation on MTV, and deep-pocketed promoters. So why did these shows suck so badly?

Some of the problem stems from the collision between high expectations and a very pedestrian reality. But beyond that, in both cases the band members simply stood there and played their stuff, with no movement, no emotion, no stage presence, and no connection with the audience whatsoever. Despite their immense reputations, they just phoned it in.

It doesn't help that the albums were heavily overproduced, very characteristic of the mid-1980s. The early use of sound samples reduced much of the performance to triggering pre-recorded bits in sync with a click-track. That left damned little room for improvisation, spontaneity, or even variation.

I know some people see a band to hear them perform their repertoire in a familiar way. But I don’t see any point to a live, in-person performance when the band’s involvement is reduced to mechanistically playing a note-for-note reproduction of what appeared on the album. The music was obviously incredibly tedious for the bands to play, which sucked all the energy and excitement out of the crowd.

The best thing I can say about those shows is that they both had cool concert tee shirts. The kind you’d wear around to show everyone that you’d seen this really cool tour… Even though it had been about the most disappointing show you’d ever seen.