Live album tricks and clowning/showmanship?

[Barticus]

Timing skills here

 

[Altitude]

Spin Doctors recorded a set at Wetlands in NYC in 1990, which was right before they blew up on radio. Great band, cool songs, seems like it would have been a super fun show. I spent a lot of time in the 90s wishing I were in this band.

 

[DaveParker39]

Fun little way they used to do this intro (bonus crying tears of joy man in crowd)

 

[jerry]

Spin Doctors recorded a set at Wetlands in NYC in 1990, which was right before they blew up on radio. Great band, cool songs, seems like it would have been a super fun show. I spent a lot of time in the 90s wishing I were in this band.

They definitely were fun to cover. I was slap happy back then and bands like Chilli Peppers, Spin Doctors, Level 42 made set lists fun for cover band bassists. A couple years later drummers had Carter Beauford to make them happy in cover bands.

 

[Pauly 4001]

 

[5StringBlues]

Lovely.

 

[Altitude]

They definitely were fun to cover. I was slap happy back then and bands like Chilli Peppers, Spin Doctors, Level 42 made set lists fun for cover band bassists. A couple years later drummers had Carter Beauford to make them happy in cover bands.

Agreed, though in hindsight every Level 42 song I covered was 100% my idea and 20% of the audience knew the tune. I guess I never called Something About You.

 

[LiptonJigglers]

Wow. No mention of Frank Zappa yet!
Zappa live at the Roxy.

 

[shadven]

Pour a bottle of water on the snare and floor tom(s) and back-light the drummer. Very dramatic. It's perfect for a big frantic busy moment high-lighting the drummer. It's an old trick that is really impressive.

 

[sleeplessknight]

These are all wonderful, thank you so much for sharing!

 

[Michedelic]

Didn't Jerry Lee Lewis write a song about this??

That was written by Otis Blackwell, along with a guy that went by the name of Jack Hammer. Lewis didn't really write most of his hits, whereas Blackwell wrote classics for a number of people…
Otis Blackwell - Wikipedia

 

[Michedelic]

Any number of live albums by Zappa/Mothers, starting with this one:

Then, the live portion of the Kinks' Everybody's In Showbiz has some moments…


…as well as BOC's On Your Feet Or On Your Knees

 

[dbsfgyd1]

That was written by Otis Blackwell, along with a guy that went by the name of Jack Hammer. Lewis didn't really write most of his hits, whereas Blackwell wrote classics for a number of people…
Otis Blackwell - Wikipedia

'Thank you.

 

[Bob_Ross]

Any number of live albums by Zappa/Mothers, starting with this one:
View attachment 5474373

One of the most impressive things about the shenanigans on ^^^that album is something I learned decades after first hearing it, when the Zappa vaults opened up and all these alternate performances of "Do You Like My New Car?" became available. You realized that, yes, they were for the most part following a tightly scripted routine/composition ...but there was enough room for extemporization that one version of the tune can be completely different in terms of vibe, feel, and straight-up comedy/timing, from another version.

Also that the original version on Fillmore East - June 1971 was perhaps serendipitously the most amazing combination of vibe, feel, and straight-up comedy/timing. Easily the best performance of that number.

 

[gcb]

 

[hbarcat]

Rush started having a lot more fun in their shows in the late '80s. I was at one of the shows on this tour (Hold Your Fire), and remember the crowd going absolutely bonkers when they realized "Closer to the Heart" was not ending as it usually did, but instead, the boys were going into a double-time "Hold my beer and watch this" addendum to it.



It was absolutely electrifying and tremendous fun to see, and kind of a turning point for a band who had usually played things pretty close to the way things were expected of them.

Yes, that.

I enjoy watching clips of live Rush shows, when the band takes a lot of liberties with an intro or a transition and really plays with it.

On one of their latest tours, they played the opening riff to La Villa Strangioto as a polka.

Plus in every tour, they'll set aside several minutes during a song transition where Alex can just freely improvise on guitar and also make jokes and chat with the audience (and Geddy).

 

[buldog5151bass]

Ray Davies was amazing with the crowd. He would pick up his acoustic guitar and start the intro to Lola. After the crowd started screaming for it, he would put it down, and say "nah, you guys aren't ready for it yet".

 

[dougjwray]

My favorite example was by the great, great Sonny Rollins, when I saw him in concert years ago.
At the very end of a set, after the most profound, intellectual, cerebral improvising ever, he finished by playing a note for about a minute (via circular breathing). That's something you'd expect from one of the Texas honky tonk tenors. It was as if he was saying, "On top of everything else, I can also do this cheap showbiz trick."
Like the music of his fellow New Yorker, Thelonious Monk, Sonny's has dry, urbane wit, and this was a wonderful example.
It would have been like Bill Evans finishing a concert by playing "Louie Louie" with his feet.