Just got back from a Jaco Pastorius tribute concert

[Jim LotFP]

Upon returning home I felt compelled to throw the Spiral Architect album on to prevent myself from going to bed with the impression that metal musicians are a bunch of stiff, lazy fucks.

Seriously though, aside from some really awful little dance moves and scat singing, this is what I want from live music (if not recorded stuff). No smoking allowed indoors here anymore so I don't have to get sick every time I go to a show now, the music was at a reasonable volume so I didn't have to distort anything with earplugs and all the instruments could be heard loud and clearly heard. Musicians going for the performance more than the show.

Of course metal really can't be like this... I've seen Opeth perform this way but metal bands that could get away with it are few and far between. Even metal bands that take heavily from fusion can't get away with it. I remember Spiral Architect's ProgPower performance being criticized because they pretty much just stood there, but there was still a lot of intensity on that stage. I wonder if they were just making faces for the sake of being metal. But I've seen Amorphis perform in a lackadaisical manner (Pasi days) and I thought they sucked the life out of their songs (more like pulling the plug on a comatose patient than actually stealing vitality when it comes to their later work... not that they can win, I saw them last year with the new guy and I was turned off by all the over-rehearsed rock star moves the band was pulling). Even thinking about a band like Dio (to take an example that has a lot of lyrics that aren't fundamentally angry or aggressive) just settling back performing like this... it wouldn't work at all.

But I like when that loose vibe is present in metal. Early Opeth and Fleurety, Agalloch, Forgotten Silence, early Ulver, Cathedral's farther out stuff, In the Woods... even alongside things like Cynic and Spiral Architect and Atheist... even when precision is the point, there is a lot of space inside the songs, it isn't suffocating. (I remember going into some metal chat room in 1997 and it was there that someone recommended I buy the Opeth albums that Century Media had just put out simply because I mentioned liking Cynic and being on the lookout for something else out of the ordinary like that). This is the element I think that defines "my" music and I have it mentally catalogued as a 90s thing - when I was first getting into this music and the entire time period I was experiencing it innocently and naively without knowing a goddamn thing about it.

Yet when I listen to the actual 70s prog rock and fusion, it's missing something and I listen to it with "appreciation" but often without real emotion (yet I keep buying all those Deep Purple live albums because they're amazing...). I can't claim to be into it to any real degree. Shit, when I found out about this concert I knew that Pastorius was a bassist and I knew the style he played but I had to look up exactly who he had played with. I just wanted to go because it was a guaranteed evening of bassists tearing shit up. The wife and I were probably the only non-musicians in the crowd. (well, except for this one drunk guy who didn't seem to want to be there and wouldn't shut up) And my friend was introducing me to people as a music critic. Fuckin' hell, don't do that to me when I'm out of my element. I wonder if fusion people call each other posers.

In the face of masterful musicians playing songs that aren't at all metal, I still think about metal. Typical!

And I rambled on waaayyy more than I intended. I hope someone can make some sense out of this.

 

[Helm]

Seeing fusion material you're new to beats seeing metal material you're new to, every time. Metal to 'work' in a live setting needs to be stuff you've done your homework on most of the time, I find. It's very rare that a metal band you're unfamiliar with will transifix you with a live performance, not to say that it doesn't happen, but still it rarely lasts a full set. At best you might get hit in the face with Heavy Metal Hammer and go 'wow, these dudes I need to check out on record!' but you won't be in musical bliss for an hour and a half of trying to follow their material.

Metal has solos, but they're not a big part of the action. The techier the metal band, the more difficult it is to enjoy an unprepared live set. The more 70's and 'open' the material is, the easier it is to catch it on the fly and start enjoying it for what it is. I bet you can throw any metalhead in a Manilla Road concert, let's say they've never heard them before and they'll be enjoying themselves once they get their bearings. The music is friendly to get into. Spiral Architect? Not so much.

Spiral Architect play mesostructrually complicated music. Most of the fusion bands do not. The microstructure is complicated, the actual chord progressions, the solo voicings, so on, but most of the time there's a musical 'carpet' and someone soloing on top. It's an easy form to follow. You are comfortable in that space knowing that someone is doing the 'talking' and you can keep your eye on them. Techy metal doesn't work this way usually. There's too much shit going on at the same time. More similar to listening to a Bartok String Quartet (try that without prior knowledge of the material. Similar feeling) than listening to fusion.

Prog rock is in the middle of the road. Sometimes structurally dense, sometimes not. Sometimes performance-flashy, sometimes not.

 

[AnTz0r]

this is what I want from live music (if not recorded stuff).

what happened to metal being able to satisfy all your musical needs?

Agalloch

you should have seen them live, haha. JWW was standing in the middle, half of the set his eyes were closed, his face turned to the ceiling. he looked... regal! then that anderson character, completely the other way around!!! sitting on his knees, resonating his guitar to the amp, guitarface almost 100% of the time haha, scraping his guitar across the stage monitor, he was goin wild!!!

 

[Occam's Razor]

I don't know if there is anything Pastorius has done you could like, just from the musical style. He played with Joni Mitchell, which is for your singer-songwriter-moments, whereas for Weather Report, you have to ignore the often cheesy sounding keyboards to enjoy the partly superb songs. He also played with Albert Mangelsdorff from Germany on Trombone. Some freer stuff this ism alongside drummer Alphonse Mouzon. This would be my personal recommendation together with the live album "Invitation".

Who were these tribute musicians, by the way?

 

[Jim LotFP]

I don't know if there is anything Pastorius has done you could like, just from the musical style. He played with Joni Mitchell, which is for your singer-songwriter-moments, whereas for Weather Report, you have to ignore the often cheesy sounding keyboards to enjoy the partly superb songs. He also played with Albert Mangelsdorff from Germany on Trombone. Some freer stuff this ism alongside drummer Alphonse Mouzon. This would be my personal recommendation together with the live album "Invitation".

The Joni Mitchell songs were pretty good, they had a girl singer there that knew her business and didn't kill anything with an awful accent. I think it's the only time I've ever been to a live show and somebody told the musicians to lower the volume, haha. The acoustic guitar was distorting.

I could have done without all the horns, because it doesn't matter what else was happening, whenever one of those saxophones was being played, all I thought was "Kenny G!"

But the bass noodling was fun, and watching the drummer go spastic was something I enjoyed. They were quite busy, and pretty much the bassists and the drummer were the only ones to impress me and generate the little rant I had. The guitar playing was just OK, the keys were pretty nondescript save for the one solo the guy did, and every time someone besides the girl sang, it was not so good.

Not in a hurry to go buy any albums, but for 5€ it was a pleasant enough evening.

Who were these tribute musicians, by the way?

Locals. I don't know any of their names, although I could find out.