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Midnight Project/Shinedown/Papa Roach
Dec. 7th, 2009 08:55 amThe first two were very disappointing last night. Granted, the first concert I ever saw was a real pro (Reznor) and maybe this makes me somewhat biased. Or maybe not.
Midnight Project and Shinedown are both guilty of having singers that just don't fit the music. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's the unfortunate truth. Their singers also have very little stage presence (and what they did have, from what I could see, was based merely on fanatic fan-girls and fan-boys for the most part.)
Continuously, Midnight and Shinedown were -telling- the crowd what to do. This was a major mistake as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure it goes over well at some other venues, but it seemed to me that they were trying -very- hard to make people do what they wanted to see. At NIN, for instance, I don't recall Reznor ever asking or telling the crowd to do anything. Yeah, he's much more well-known (so to speak - Shinedown has been on the radio for how long now, and Reznor didn't have much of a radio presence comparably) but I think this is mostly about how his stage presence presence dwarfed these guys.
My opinion - Shinedown's real musicians need to boot their singer out the door. They'd probably lose a good portion of their fan base, but I have no empathy personally with what the guy has to sing about. I think he's a shallow prick that likes to sing about drug abuse and suicide, the keys to every emo kid's heart. His shallowness and anger literally was projecting into the crowd (even with what he had to say at some points!) like, "If the person next to you isn't jumping, grab their hair and toss them to the ground!"
Modern music really has gone to shit. HOWEVER.
Papa Roach delivered flawlessly. I only heard a few off keys, stage presence was awesome, and he only -once- asked the crowd to do -anything-. The energy was very good for them, and I'm happy to see they played such an extended set for such a small crowd (The Civic Center was nowhere near capacity.) I think they knew Shinedown didn't receive a very warm welcome, and I'll wager a bet Shaddix found -his- welcome more than empowering.
The only other thing that bothered me throughout the night is that both Shinedown and Midnight Project used keyboard loops, with no keyboardist. They could at least employ a keyboardist so the stuff is fucking real. It's understandable when you have DJs with loops, but when you're a band, I don't really understand why you wouldn't have a live performing for synth. This is probably common practice nowadays, because the synth adds additional polyphony and makes the band sound that much "bigger" than they actually are.
On the whole, this concert was a real eye-opener for me. Watching all those guys on stage, I saw highly varied level of ability, talent and charisma. I really felt like I could be one of them, given the right opportunity in the coming years. I'll never stop making music regardless, though :)
I think if I had the resources, I'd really be able to design awesome live shows around my music. It's such a vast part of the art.
Midnight Project and Shinedown are both guilty of having singers that just don't fit the music. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's the unfortunate truth. Their singers also have very little stage presence (and what they did have, from what I could see, was based merely on fanatic fan-girls and fan-boys for the most part.)
Continuously, Midnight and Shinedown were -telling- the crowd what to do. This was a major mistake as far as I'm concerned, and I'm sure it goes over well at some other venues, but it seemed to me that they were trying -very- hard to make people do what they wanted to see. At NIN, for instance, I don't recall Reznor ever asking or telling the crowd to do anything. Yeah, he's much more well-known (so to speak - Shinedown has been on the radio for how long now, and Reznor didn't have much of a radio presence comparably) but I think this is mostly about how his stage presence presence dwarfed these guys.
My opinion - Shinedown's real musicians need to boot their singer out the door. They'd probably lose a good portion of their fan base, but I have no empathy personally with what the guy has to sing about. I think he's a shallow prick that likes to sing about drug abuse and suicide, the keys to every emo kid's heart. His shallowness and anger literally was projecting into the crowd (even with what he had to say at some points!) like, "If the person next to you isn't jumping, grab their hair and toss them to the ground!"
Modern music really has gone to shit. HOWEVER.
Papa Roach delivered flawlessly. I only heard a few off keys, stage presence was awesome, and he only -once- asked the crowd to do -anything-. The energy was very good for them, and I'm happy to see they played such an extended set for such a small crowd (The Civic Center was nowhere near capacity.) I think they knew Shinedown didn't receive a very warm welcome, and I'll wager a bet Shaddix found -his- welcome more than empowering.
The only other thing that bothered me throughout the night is that both Shinedown and Midnight Project used keyboard loops, with no keyboardist. They could at least employ a keyboardist so the stuff is fucking real. It's understandable when you have DJs with loops, but when you're a band, I don't really understand why you wouldn't have a live performing for synth. This is probably common practice nowadays, because the synth adds additional polyphony and makes the band sound that much "bigger" than they actually are.
On the whole, this concert was a real eye-opener for me. Watching all those guys on stage, I saw highly varied level of ability, talent and charisma. I really felt like I could be one of them, given the right opportunity in the coming years. I'll never stop making music regardless, though :)
I think if I had the resources, I'd really be able to design awesome live shows around my music. It's such a vast part of the art.
