Mastodon on Letterman

[Dead Winter]

Saw this the other night on Letterman. Obligatory post. Good shit.

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

yeah its too bad the vocals, besides the drummers, are way off. almost ruins the song.

 

[Dead Winter]

Yeah it sounded like there was a problem with the delay. TV is known for having really shit sound, though.

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

No i mean they're singing way out of key for most of the song.

 

[Shpongled]

Yeah that doesn't sound like a delay problem to me. It sounds like Brent and Troy are just completely off key. It's not even tolerable, sounds like some 2 week old garage band type shit. Wonder what the story is, they've (the vocals) never sounded that bad to me before. Troy has always looked like he struggles to do everything he has to do. It looks like he works really hard to play all his bass parts correctly and he looks like he REALLLLLLLY has to struggle to get the clean vocals out. It's actually somewhat awkward to watch. Weird considering they've killed every time I've seen them, especially the last two times when they played this album in it's entirety. Everything sounded amazing then.

I think it may have something to do with the fact it's TV also, like DW said. I've never really seen any bands sound amazing on these TV talk shows.

 

[Captain Beard]

Beer does that.

 

[Dead Winter]

I'm sure they were probably a bit nervous as well. They had to do a special cut of the song for TV and were probably rushed into doing it with little time to prepare. I know what you mean about the vocals being a bit off, but I've seen other live cam vids of this song and they nail it. They probably just had an off day. However, their playing is great.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, this is something kinda new where all of them do the vox, right? I remember their other albums sounding nothing like this one, so they might still have trouble doing it live sometimes.

As Kevin said, the bassist does look like he's struggling, and that might actually be the case. Many people think that playing bass and singing is easy, when it's really not. You have to follow the drums and sing with the guitars, which is no easy feat. I'm glad I'm singing and playing guitar instead of bass; it's not easy but I'm pretty decent at it because I can follow the rhythm and melody while I sing/scream. Hell, that's another thing. Screaming and playing is completely different from singing and playing.

 

[WhiteBeastofWotan]

k

 

[neal]

yeh, every 'heavy' band sounds like shit on the talk shows, and it seems in a lot of live vids troy definitely struggles with the vocals. every time ive seen them the vocals were mostly ok, and this last time with the whole new album and tons of clean singing they all sounded great. we saw em not too far into the tour though, this letterman appearance was recorded after they just did like 30 shows in 35 days or something so their voices are probably shot, except brann who doesnt sing as much and has a better voice anyway!

 

[Dead Winter]

Brent looks so baked at 4:07

 

[AeonicSlumber]

I saw the band on this tour, and while Intronaut and what I saw from Mastodon were amazing, I did not expect the horrifically gay crowd. One of the worst crowds I have ever seen at a show in my life. One dude was straight up pouring his beer off of the balcony and onto people. Shitty.

 

[EricT]

... thats a gay crowd?

 

[AeonicSlumber]

lol yeah. I've seen grind bands with better crowds than that nonsense. I was expecting bearded lumberjack hipsters, not concert newbs that get too drunk for their own good and act like dicks. I was only citing one example of what went on.

 

[Brooks]

Your example and your statement do not match up.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

Seriously? If you guys were at a show and a guy deliberately spilled out his beverage into the crowd you'd consider that okay? I think that's pretty fucked up. I've seen accidents of that nature and that's obviously excusable, but this was deliberate as I was standing right next to the dude. Felt bad for the people who got their shit ruined.

But I also saw a few fights break out between peeps and security. I mean fist fights. Made me laugh because this is a Mastodon show, not a Trash Talk show.

 

[Brooks]

Heavy metal music makes people do crazy things.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

More mainstream bands attract idiots.

Fixed.

 

[Morganna]

I've seen accidents of nature that's obviously excusable.

Fixed!

 

[Brooks]

Fixed.

Out-group Homogeneity'd.

Homo.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

Why you guys gotta be dicks?