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Mar. 4th, 2018 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evening_tsarThere exist, deep within the darkest dungeons of my subconsciousness, a gathering of musical pieces I have taken to calling "bucket list songs". Not because I want to hear them before I die (a rather odd criterion really), but because I should really like to hear them performed live before I die. Not just in the sense of "that's a cool song, wonder if they'll play it", but as in "this is a brilliant song which melted my brain and reformed it into the shape you'll find it in today, and I would just completely freak out and die if they played it."
Curiously enough, any band's likelihood of actually such a song seems to be in directly inverse proportion to my desire to hear it. Which makes such performances so precious as to be mythical. For some reason, bands just don't seem to want to play those songs.
In recent times though, this list has gotten shorter. A few years ago I did get to take in a performance of Korsikov's "Easter Overture" (despite the best efforts of a certain ex. . .). Last summer, Midnight Oil did indeed play "Now or Never Land", and as I slowly realized that that slowly crescendoing bass lick was indeed leading into that song and not just an audio illusion born of wistful thinking, tears poured forth in joyful rivulets.
Another such moment nearly came the other night watching Udo Dirksnieder perform a full set of his old Accept hits. A lot like Midnight Oil, Udo came back to Canada only a few months after his last show, to play all sorts of rarities he didn't get to last time. One of these happened to be the title track from 1986's "Russian Roulette".
"Russian Roulette" was my very first Accept album, and thus one of the most formative albums of my youth. It's not generally held to be a classic (thus it's rarity on set lists), but I was enthralled. So hearing it live was a very, very special occasion.
And yet. . .
The guitarist waltzes out on stage alone, and he smiles at the crowd. He plays something. The into chords to "Russian Roulette" are quiet, distant. So much so, you think you're imagining them at first. Then they creep up on you. As it was here. "OMG, OMG, OMG!!" thinks I.
The moment is still with me, and will never leave make no mistake. And yet reality, cold reality, has an infuriating way of chilling fantasy, and insists on living up to it. So, awesome as it was, I couldn't help noticing it was played in (what seemed to me), the wrong key. The throbbing bass drowned out the guitar. Those magnificent choruses and that orgasmic bridge, which on vinyl sound like the entire Red Army choir is participating, can't really be duplicated on such a small stage by four guys who don't seem to want to harmonize.
IF anything, it's a tribute to the engineers and producers of the album (self produced), and to the overlooked background vocals of the rest of the band (provided by Hoffman or Baltes or both). Backgound vox are harder than you might think: they too have their own feel. Hoffman and Baltes had deep, powerful voices which lent gravity and dignity to the proceedings. They can still be heard on current Accept releases (with Mark Tornillo on vocals) They're not easily replaced.
So it didn't really live up to expectations. But am I really going to crap all over a bucket-list moment? No. Rose-tinted hindsight will redeem this moment as well, and reservations will be forgotten. I will not remember that the bass was too loud, the chorus weak, or the bridge a shadow of the Aristotelean ideal. I'll only remember when the guitarist came out alone, grinned at me and started playing a song from my Bucket-list.
Curiously enough, any band's likelihood of actually such a song seems to be in directly inverse proportion to my desire to hear it. Which makes such performances so precious as to be mythical. For some reason, bands just don't seem to want to play those songs.
In recent times though, this list has gotten shorter. A few years ago I did get to take in a performance of Korsikov's "Easter Overture" (despite the best efforts of a certain ex. . .). Last summer, Midnight Oil did indeed play "Now or Never Land", and as I slowly realized that that slowly crescendoing bass lick was indeed leading into that song and not just an audio illusion born of wistful thinking, tears poured forth in joyful rivulets.
Another such moment nearly came the other night watching Udo Dirksnieder perform a full set of his old Accept hits. A lot like Midnight Oil, Udo came back to Canada only a few months after his last show, to play all sorts of rarities he didn't get to last time. One of these happened to be the title track from 1986's "Russian Roulette".
"Russian Roulette" was my very first Accept album, and thus one of the most formative albums of my youth. It's not generally held to be a classic (thus it's rarity on set lists), but I was enthralled. So hearing it live was a very, very special occasion.
And yet. . .
The guitarist waltzes out on stage alone, and he smiles at the crowd. He plays something. The into chords to "Russian Roulette" are quiet, distant. So much so, you think you're imagining them at first. Then they creep up on you. As it was here. "OMG, OMG, OMG!!" thinks I.
The moment is still with me, and will never leave make no mistake. And yet reality, cold reality, has an infuriating way of chilling fantasy, and insists on living up to it. So, awesome as it was, I couldn't help noticing it was played in (what seemed to me), the wrong key. The throbbing bass drowned out the guitar. Those magnificent choruses and that orgasmic bridge, which on vinyl sound like the entire Red Army choir is participating, can't really be duplicated on such a small stage by four guys who don't seem to want to harmonize.
IF anything, it's a tribute to the engineers and producers of the album (self produced), and to the overlooked background vocals of the rest of the band (provided by Hoffman or Baltes or both). Backgound vox are harder than you might think: they too have their own feel. Hoffman and Baltes had deep, powerful voices which lent gravity and dignity to the proceedings. They can still be heard on current Accept releases (with Mark Tornillo on vocals) They're not easily replaced.
So it didn't really live up to expectations. But am I really going to crap all over a bucket-list moment? No. Rose-tinted hindsight will redeem this moment as well, and reservations will be forgotten. I will not remember that the bass was too loud, the chorus weak, or the bridge a shadow of the Aristotelean ideal. I'll only remember when the guitarist came out alone, grinned at me and started playing a song from my Bucket-list.
