I am an older musician (58) and have enjoyed watching many a band perform over the last 40+ years or so. One thing I must say that have found a bit annoying, however, has been the occasional tendency of some bands to play an excessive amount of "musical chairs" with their designated instruments. That said, not all instrument switching is annoying to me -- in fact some of it seems natural and works quite well on stage. Other times it has a more jarring visual quality to it. So I guess I'll clarify all of this by making a list of my observations. I've discussed this with other musicians as well as non-musicians and most people just seems to shrug as if "so what's the big deal?" so I won't be the least bit offended if anybody makes any snarky retorts to it.
* Switching between guitar and keyboards ala Steve Winwood.
This to me is a natural; they're both chordal instruments. Going back and forth is pretty seamless.
* Switching between bass and keyboards ala John Paul Jones and Geddy Lee.
This also to me is also a natural -- on one song you're playing bass guitar. On another song (or in the case of Lee another measure) you're playing bass with the left hand or bass pedals.
* Switching between a double necked guitar and bass with bass pedals also ala Geddy Lee.
Once again this also seems pretty seamless.
*Switching between drums and front man ala Phil Collins.
That took a little getting used to for me but the end results were pretty good.
* A guitarist and bassist switch roles for a song or two for no apparent reason.
For some reason this annoys me. I often ask myself "why?". In fact the guitarist in my band has brought this up to me a few times and I've told him that I find the concept of that idea a bit annoying. I mean we have completely different styles in guitar so it might be kind of interesting but I just find the way it looks on stage really awkward. The only exception I can think of where they pulled it off (and probably due the amount of gear and road crew) was later period Genesis.
*Switching back and forth between guitar and drums ala Dave Grohl.
Let's face it; he's great on both. Do I want to see him go back and forth? For some reason I don't. In fact every time I hear Foo Fighters the fact that he was once famous for playing drums keeps inching into my mind. To me drums is a different animal. It annoys me when drummers want to play any another instrument on stage for reason. This does not include drummers who have MIDI triggers ala Neil Peart. That has a more seamless quality to it.
*A band where the bassist and drummer switch back and forth every song.
I have not seen this yet myself but somebody was telling me recently about a band that did just that. I would probably have to leave.
*Indie bands where people routinely switch instruments to get different sound textures and expand their horizons.
Where is the exit? Just in case you think I'm a humorless old fart, I even got a bit annoyed when the 70's prog band Gentle Giant were hot dogging it by doing something in a very similar vein.
Anybody else out there have a similar annoyance or is it just me?
