Some Bands Are Best Live
Band-Maid 2023 North American Tour: Postscript
I was born too late to have seen the Beatles live, but I remember the media coverage of the hordes of screaming girls. I thought the Beatles were great, but I found all the fan hysteria quite ridiculous.
As I got older, I read press about people who followed other rock bands around from city to city, sort of how some sports fans follow their favorite teams. I knew one guy who managed to see 37 consecutive Grateful Dead concerts (ok, Deadheads are more than a bit weird).
There are obviously a lot of bands or solo artists with huge fanbases. There are far fewer whose fans will pick up and follow them to multiple gigs. Thinking about what makes the difference, I realized it is simply being a great live band. That is not trivial — very few artists are as good live as they are in the studio. The Beatles are perhaps the most iconic example — they actually quit touring only five years into their run and were solely a studio band after 1966.
Huge pop stars like Madonna and Beyonce can afford massive productions that obscure the little inaccuracies or rough spots that are a natural part of live performing. Does that make them truly great live performers? It depends on what your expectations are. Now, we live in the era of autotune. Many singers lip-synch —…
