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Victor Wooten's showmanship over the top? - Video

#2
His intro...Truly and absolutely horrific(just cheesy beyond belief) imho, of course.
I like the playing and the music though(apart from the latter half of the bass solo).
I always liked the original flecktones-mostly due to Howard Levy.
 
#3
I appreciate Victor's playing and showmanship. We saw him last year in Annapolis MD (with Steve Bailey, Anthony Wellington et all) and they put on a great show. As a bass player, I can only hope to improve my chops on a daily basis....and I can't slap for s#@t!...but still try.
 
#5
I think that the clip needs to be taken in context. That performance was 23 years ago. Don't make me start posting up hair band vids for ultimate cheese.

I saw Victor a few month back in Asheville. His current show focuses on all the musicians and he does a lot more talking with his skill set today than pulling a Ricky Ricardo on bass. The Pickle Song played live sleighs me every time with the facial expressions between he and Steve.

Love him or not, Victor is truly an entertainer that is unafraid to try just about anything to connect with his audience. And he has skills to back it up.

Now that I think about it, while the shows are refined today, I have seen him do some cool things that surprised. The hat flip from his head to his foot to his head is pretty amazing.

Was in a listening club in Jax, FL with a friend to see him back in the mid 90's. We were upstairs leaning up against a rail overlooking the dance floor. We're sipping on beers.........the band starts. I look to the stage, see Anthony, JD, Reggie, but no Victor. I can hear him playing but he isn't on stage. Thought maybe Anthony was just tearing it up when Victor runs right up behind us, again, playing a blistering groove, and says, " How are you guys doing tonight? Thanks for coming to the show!" He then ran over to another group of people. My buddy about peed himself.

One one hand, no big deal, Victor is running around with a cordless. Been done a million times. OTOH, being at the show, I was both shocked and honored that Victor ran up to us to say hello. It pushed the show "over the top" for me and my guest.

As a showgoer, some of these antics do raise the level of entertainment, especially for non-musicians. My wife loves crazy/goofy stage stuff. Akin to the awesome dance mayhem that the Tower of Power horn section does when they all go crazy.

My 2 cents.
 
#7
Zoomie said:
I think that the clip needs to be taken in context. That performance was 23 years ago. Don't make me start posting up hair band vids for ultimate cheese.
Click to expand...

Context? Absolutely! And also, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones was probably a hard sell being an instrumental band that they decided to do at least a rap bit since they don't sing. Arsenio doesn't get any credit for putting different genres of music on. He was the first to have rap, modern country, metal and instrumental bands on. Everyone has to remember that in those days the big late night shows like the Tonight Show or Letterman only had established artists. Arsenio was the first to have the newer bands on.
 
#8
hrodbert696 said:
You mean the cheesy rap intro? Yah, he doesn't do that anymore... chalk it up to being young, and rap still seeming exotic and cool to white audiences in 1990.
Click to expand...

Haha, no. Actually I was referring to how in his solo, instead of playing a million notes like on the recording he opted for a more visual solo. Invalid Link Removed
Now we know he can play this solo note for note but he decided to do the more rhythmic version and whip the bass around his body. Twice! Was this the right decision for an audience who might not appreciate a bass solo?

Edit: just checking the link and on my Mac it's not jumping to the solo so if it's starting from the beginning, jump to 2:33 for the solo.
 
#10
PetersReviews said:
Haha, no. Actually I was referring to how in his solo, instead of playing a million notes like on the recording he opted for a more visual solo. Invalid Link Removed
Now we know he can play this solo note for note but he decided to do the more rhythmic version and whip the bass around his body. Twice! Was this the right decision for an audience who might not appreciate a bass solo?

Edit: just checking the link and on my Mac it's not jumping to the solo so if it's starting from the beginning, jump to 2:33 for the solo.
Click to expand...

Oh that... no, I thought the solo was cool. Television is a visual medium, and he got that.
 
#13
Some ideas we get are awesome and others are cheezy and dated. Don't we all have a few videos from our past we'd like to have edited?

I thought that clip had plenty of awesome in it. Victor is one hell of a bass player/ showman/ and apparently good all-around human being. Anyone who can't see that is blind, deaf or a jealous hater.
 
#15
Television is a visual medium. Think about the folks who might have been watching that show in a bar with the sound off: they still would have been struck by the performance. Victor comes from the old school of show biz, where the entertainer did just that: entertained. Wasn't one of Victor's main gigs before hooking up with Béla playing at Busch Gardens? I know that a lot of the people who went to see the Flecktones in the 90s did so because they had heard about the wild bassist in the band.
 
#18
Well, if you think that's over the top, you shoulda seen their whole show during that period. I saw 'em in the early '90s, and in addition to the around-the-neck trick, he also threw his bass in the air (high!), caught it, then continued playing in time. And there were several other tricky showman things he did. You could certainly classify it as over the top, but I and pretty much everyone else in the crowd were just wowed by it. I wasn't crazy about the Flecktones' music, so I appreciated the added showmanship all the more.
 

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