I disagree here. I think really the only grammar issues on Clayman might be subject/verb agreement with regards to when he uses plurals. For example (but really, this is still found in his lyrics today) "Run-down memoirs is all that's left". It should be "memoirs are all that's left." Also, I don't think he knows when to use distance and distant.
In Flames New Album being released in Q2 of 2014 thread
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I disagree here. I think really the only grammar issues on Clayman might be subject/verb agreement with regards to when he uses plurals. For example (but really, this is still found in his lyrics today) "Run-down memoirs is all that's left". It should be "memoirs are all that's left." Also, I don't think he knows when to use distance and distant.
I missed this earlier. I like all of them but my favorites are Whoracle, TJR, and Colony. I really like Come Clarity too (all the artwork for that album) because I really like the artist Derek Hess.
only4theweak187
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I lost the link but in an interview Anders did in 2005: "Clayman was rough at times for us in the studio with arguments and conflicting ideas. But, I am proud of and enjoyed creating all albums equally. Except Tokyo Showdown, that sucked."
- Mar 16, 2009
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Yep I know they are all displeased with Tokyo Showdown. I don't remember the exact story though but I remember Jesper saying as well that they shouldn't have done that one at all. Colony is also my favorite artwork, by far. I really liked SOAPF as well. I've been using the STYE cover as desktop background for years as well I like the simplicity of it.
And here's the interview you were looking for with Anders:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...hannel=sb&gws_rd=cr&ei=NE2-U-P6C4O9ygPN34KIDQ
And here's the interview you were looking for with Anders:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...hannel=sb&gws_rd=cr&ei=NE2-U-P6C4O9ygPN34KIDQ
I wasn't a huge fan of CC's artwork, until I saw ASOP... then suddenly CC didn't seem so bad.
Clayman's artwork was a little bland, which is a bit of a shame considering how amazing the album is.
When a new album is near the old guard always return to throw down some wisdom 
It's strange when I read Anders talking about how the old stuff doesn't work live. I was watching them at a show (I think it was 2008) where they played a TJR melody - and The Jester Race sounded absolutely epic. The intro gave me goosebumps and all the songs they played in that medley sounded incredible live.
Personally I think the reasons for them not playing the songs are twofold - firstly it takes too much out of them as the older songs are more demanding to play, and secondly Anders can't produce that type of vocal technique anymore over a sustained period. He can throw a great growl out every so often but I don't think he can do it for half or even a quarter of a show, whilst still utilising his (terrible) clean voice for the newer tracks.
It does make sense, but for fans of their older stuff it's also massively disappointing. I'm pretty sure the main reason they play The Hive is because the song ends with a huge solo and Anders gets a break as a result
Check out the crowd "not reacting" to Dead God In Me & The Jester Race here...
You were saying, Anders?
It's strange when I read Anders talking about how the old stuff doesn't work live. I was watching them at a show (I think it was 2008) where they played a TJR melody - and The Jester Race sounded absolutely epic. The intro gave me goosebumps and all the songs they played in that medley sounded incredible live.
Personally I think the reasons for them not playing the songs are twofold - firstly it takes too much out of them as the older songs are more demanding to play, and secondly Anders can't produce that type of vocal technique anymore over a sustained period. He can throw a great growl out every so often but I don't think he can do it for half or even a quarter of a show, whilst still utilising his (terrible) clean voice for the newer tracks.
It does make sense, but for fans of their older stuff it's also massively disappointing. I'm pretty sure the main reason they play The Hive is because the song ends with a huge solo and Anders gets a break as a result
Check out the crowd "not reacting" to Dead God In Me & The Jester Race here...
You were saying, Anders?
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Yeah, like Metallica fans "hatin' " Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets stuff.
I know you have the smiley face after, but is that a real thing? Also, I was pretty surprised at the setlists for Metallica's By Request tour. There weren't really any obscure songs. I think it ended up just being what they would have normally played.
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When a new album is near the old guard always return to throw down some wisdom
It's strange when I read Anders talking about how the old stuff doesn't work live. I was watching them at a show (I think it was 2008) where they played a TJR melody - and The Jester Race sounded absolutely epic. The intro gave me goosebumps and all the songs they played in that medley sounded incredible live.
Personally I think the reasons for them not playing the songs are twofold - firstly it takes too much out of them as the older songs are more demanding to play, and secondly Anders can't produce that type of vocal technique anymore over a sustained period. He can throw a great growl out every so often but I don't think he can do it for half or even a quarter of a show, whilst still utilising his (terrible) clean voice for the newer tracks.
It does make sense, but for fans of their older stuff it's also massively disappointing. I'm pretty sure the main reason they play The Hive is because the song ends with a huge solo and Anders gets a break as a result
Check out the crowd "not reacting" to Dead God In Me & The Jester Race here...
You were saying, Anders?
Not all tracks on TJR are unplayable, some of them works fine, Jester Race being one of them. But there is songs where they have 4-8 guitar tracks at the same time, and it's understandable they feel it would sound thin and not as great as they want it to sound when they perform it live. And that medley was fucking awesome. Sadly I missed the show they did in Stockholm on that tour, but the setlists they had on that tour was probably one of the best ones ever IMO.
But mostly it IS the crowd. Yes in the video you linked, in their hometown Gothenburg there is a good crowd reaction, but on the whole Gigantour and the Autumn tour after, it was not. I know that in either France or Germany or both Anders ''warned'' the crowd that if they do not move they might not ever play those songs again, so obviously there is lack of energy and involvement in the majority of the crowd when they played it, otherwise there is absolutely no reason for them to say so.
And Whoracle's songs are a bit better fitted live songs, since they started actually thinking about the songs being played live when they wrote the songs. But they have reworked and added stuff to the The Hive to make it sound better live when they started playing it again a lot a couple years ago.
And I actually think they aren't that demanding, when Anders has had a cold and a sick throat, he's actually growled more. High pitched screams are a lot more demanding as far as I know. And as far as the actual songs I've heard both Jesper, Björn & Peter say they are easier songs in general. I know it because on Jesterhead they had a bunch of ''ask the band'' threads and many people asked what In Flames songs they should start playing if they are novice guitar players and looking to play the easiest songs. I'm no guitar player so I don't know, but In Flames have never been the most technically guitar oriented band. Which is why all the hard solos are not written by anyone in the band, for example probably the best IF solo in December Flower which they skipped when they played it live because it was too hard for them to play lol.
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Well, we know that Moonshield, Graveland, The Jester Race, Dead Eternity and Dead God in Me sound absolutely fine live. Artifacts sounds great too. So that just leaves Lord Hypnos, December Flower and the two instrumentals
surely we just have to say the band are making excuses here because they don't wanna play the old stuff? There is a reason if they want to make excuses not to play much old stuff, or just make the crowd even more energetic than they already would be. All I can say is from my experience of seeing them 6/7 times from 2004-2010 the crowd were chanting for TJR and went crazy when they played the older stuff. Maybe it's different in other countries but my own experiences suggest the older songs are still in demand by a good portion of the crowd.
He doesn't really growl the older songs though, he still screams them, just throwing in a growl every so often. And there's no respite for crowd singalong or recorded backing vocals to help.
I can't believe that songs like The Quiet Place, Cloud Connected, Delight and Angers and Trigger are harder to play than Moonshield, Gyroscope, The Jester Race, etc
just no way. Some of their newer songs MAY be more difficult, but it ain't the ones they play regularly. I imagine the reason the band members recommend the older songs to novice guitar players is because they'll actually learn something from the older tracks, whilst the newer tracks will just teach them how to play chugga chugga chugga in an infinite loop followed by a meandering wah-wah solo...Well, we know that Moonshield, Graveland, The Jester Race and Dead God in Me sound absolutely fine live. Artifacts sounds great too. So that just leaves Lord Hypnos, December Flower and the two instrumentals
You can play pretty much every important song from older albums without major problems live. Yes, you need to remove guitar harmony or rhythm here and there, but it's a minor issue not affecting the overall impression.
As I've said before. There are bands playing complex stuff live without problems. IF is quite easy to do compared to that.
Also, it's stupid to moan over lost harmony or two, and then base your whole set on songs filled with effects, keyboards, layered choruses etc.
It's just a lame excuse. There's probably a good reason for crowds in some countries not reacting to older material. When you pretty much alienate older fans with terrible setlists, most of remaining dudes are the "n'flamez rulez bro! fak yea!!!" ones.
I wouldn't bother going to IF show if I'm expected to listen 90 minutes of STYE, CC, ASOP and SOAPF (now SC too). Maybe if they pay me. Not the other way around.
A good point. They managed to alienate the older fans very quickly by progressing from Melodeath/melodic metal to a nu-metal inspired sound within a couple of years, whilst simultaneously filling their setlists exclusively with newer material and almost completely ignoring their pre-Colony tracks.
I've been listening to some live In Flames lately. It's actually scary to hear how much Anders' voice has deteriorated. He had a really rough spell around 2002-2003 (the Seoul and London shows in particular are hard to listen to, his throat sounds on the verge of collapse), then from 2004-2007 he got it back in a big way. His vocals sound really strong on the 2004 live DVD and shows like Rock AM Ring and Graspop. You can hear that power in the albums too, he sounds far more solid on STYE and CC than he did on Clayman or Reroute.
But since then, fuck. Wacken 2012 is tragic. He sounds really worn out in most of the newer videos. It's not a surprise, really, considering how long he's been doing it and the amount of touring they've done... but it's actually worrying sometimes listening to Anders live. He sounds in pain at times and his singing lacks any power at all.
I don't understand the "too many guitar parts" argument for not playing the older songs. Here are three examples: 1) Pantera only had one guitarist so they had to take out some parts, namely the rhythm during solos. 2) Metallica - One, during the end solo where they harmonize there is still the machine gun rhythm underneath that during live shows they just cut out and do the harmony. 3) SOAPF - There are two simultaneous solos on top of a rhythm in that song yet they play that live, right? Hell, 4) Dream Theater, same situation at Pantera.
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I think that all of us here thinks that the songs would work live from our perspective. But maybe they feel that they won't do the songs justice at all from their perspective and doesn't want to play them that much. That ontop with much of the audience not knowing the songs and the live-staples they have to play + promoting all the new material, makes it hard to fit in a bunch of old songs unless it's a 20+ song set which is extremely rare.
I think it's almostt entirely to do with wanting to please the majority of the audience - and for reasons mostly of the band's own making, that means playing stuff from R2R onwards + Only For The Weak. Most of their fans now are not the fans that were around when they were throwing down The Jester Race, Whoracle, Colony or Clayman.
That said, the old songs still get a very good reaction whenever I've been to a show, and they are so good live that it should encourage a fair portion of the audience to go back and listen to their older albums anyway.
Problem is, they've deviated so far from their older style that any fan who - for instance - loves ASOP will probably think TJR or Whoracle is a mess. "Where are the catchy choruses?" "Why isn't he singing about feeling like shit?" etc...
It does make me laugh how in interviews Anders is pretty much in total denial about the whole thing though whenever an interviewer brings it up he's like "no we haven't changed that much" and "we never made a decision to change styles" ... heh.
As far as I'm concerned the band know very well that most of the old songs sound great live, they just don't want to go through the effort of remembering how to play them and are fearful of Anders vocals being more destroyed than they already are. To be fair to Anders he's, what, 44 years old now? To expect him to sing a lot of stuff in TJR/Whoracle/Colony style is sadly quite unrealistic. Better to let him continue his half-scream-yell and bad clean singing for as long as he can to prolong his career, rather than blow out his voicebox entirely doing the older stuff regularly.
That said, the old songs still get a very good reaction whenever I've been to a show, and they are so good live that it should encourage a fair portion of the audience to go back and listen to their older albums anyway.
Problem is, they've deviated so far from their older style that any fan who - for instance - loves ASOP will probably think TJR or Whoracle is a mess. "Where are the catchy choruses?" "Why isn't he singing about feeling like shit?" etc...
It does make me laugh how in interviews Anders is pretty much in total denial about the whole thing though
whenever an interviewer brings it up he's like "no we haven't changed that much" and "we never made a decision to change styles" ... heh. As far as I'm concerned the band know very well that most of the old songs sound great live, they just don't want to go through the effort of remembering how to play them and are fearful of Anders vocals being more destroyed than they already are. To be fair to Anders he's, what, 44 years old now? To expect him to sing a lot of stuff in TJR/Whoracle/Colony style is sadly quite unrealistic. Better to let him continue his half-scream-yell and bad clean singing for as long as he can to prolong his career, rather than blow out his voicebox entirely doing the older stuff regularly.
I think it has nothing to do with how difficult the song is to play live or guitar layers etc etc. I think there are two reasons 1) In flames play in a lot of festivals, joint-tours and support big bands so they know that a lot of the times the crowd they play to are not familiar with their songs, so they will play their newest 'hits' which are more accessible to a wider audience and catchy and hence maximizes the chance that the crowd will like them and hence start following them. 2) they will play the songs which gained them most popularity cause its a sure bet on getting the majority of the crowd going - I love the old songs but for in flames fans who haven't really explored their whole discography or for fans that know in flames only from youtube videos, the old songs can be hit or miss live.
I know its unfair for fans like us who want to hear stuff like man made god or stand ablaze live but that's how the music business is.
I know its unfair for fans like us who want to hear stuff like man made god or stand ablaze live but that's how the music business is.
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