Posts by Duke of Earl of Mar

Lover Boy - Supertramp

Quote from Backdrifter

I'm happy with No Reply [...] of course the horns cause a certain amount of automatic door-slamming from some fans regardless of what else is going on in the song.

I remember well how I felt when listening to it for the first time. I had found the LP in a vinyl record store. Until then, speaking of studio recordings, I only knew the 1970-1980 period... And Face Value.

It was a bit of a shock. First, I already knew the live version of Abacab because my Mum had Three Sides Lives, and I was kind of disappointed by the early fade-out of the song in the album, compared to the "rocking out" final of the live version...

And then, this. "Horns !? WTF ? What are they doing ? Mhh, not their best..."

Of course, I hadn't listened to the second side...

When "Who Dunnit" came, I was like "No.. No No No... NOOOO !"

It took me a few years to accept it...

Now I'm fine with it, haha !

Quote from jaydubya

For me the medleys work best when there's contrast in moods between the sections. I actually thought the idea of Fading Lights into Cinema Show was a good one, its just that the join was a bit clunky. They probably should of done a small part of the Fading Lights instrumental before transitioning into Cinema Show.

Or they could have played Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers... With Fading LIghts in E Major, it works actually...

I keep having ideas... Even if it is pointless.

- They could have done the first 2 verses and choruses of Ripples during the acoustic medley;

- They could have played A trick of the Tail, in a similar way to That's All. They never played it ? That's the point ! That would have been a great surprise...

- Same for Lovers's Leap.

-Instead of going straight into Cinema Show, they could have played Unquiet Slumbers (same key of E Major !), to make a smoother transition. They never played it ? Again, that's the point !

Anyway...

Quote from siderealxxx

I thought is was very odd Mike used a lot of Squier Strats but I noticed they all had stickers on the top and realised they were all for the different tunings for the downtuned versions of the songs. Why they were Squiers and not Fenders I don't know, I figured between them they'd have enough real Strats or wealthy enough to buy a few! I'd have lent him mine

I think Mike said he was in vacation in South Africa when lock-down occurred in 2020. So he was stuck there, and he hadn't brought his equipment. He had to stay trained for the forthcoming rehearsals and tour, and so he bought a cheap Squier at a local store. It turned out it was surprisingly good, and he became quite attached to it, finding the neck of the instrument comfortable for his hands.

They changed the pickups and the tuners for the tour.

Guitar Player article here

EDIT : nice rendition of HBTS at the end of the video. The guy is a fan...

Quote from The_Genesis_Archive

Six Of The Best was filmed, by people that Peter Gabriel contracted to do it. Its not uber pro shot, but likely similar in quality to his recent youtube upload of the Shepton Mallet footage from 1982.

TGA

Whaaat ? Really !?

I know it's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but since I know it exists, now I have hope about a potential release...

Quote from Backdrifter

the DA-DA-DA-DAAAAAAAAAH-brrrmmm-tsssh

I like the ending, but it's true it's quite common to finish a song this way. Besides, I love Guide Vocal, and I think that, for me, it would have been even better to include it with Duchess...

My regret is that they didn't choose to play both Duchess and Misunderstanding. I prefer Duchess, but I like the other one too, and I think it worked when they played it in Chicago.

Quote from AnythingNow

Maybe this live introduction by Phil is the source for this spelling?

Wow...

Well, I must say I'm quite proud of myself...

When you said it had to do with Phil, I checked his vocals but found nothing special, so I focused on his drumming.

By the way, I said something a bit wrong, Phil does not exclusively use hi-hat cymbals, there are some crash and china cymbals too, usually at the end of every "cycle" - musicians will understand what I mean. But to set the tempo, by playing 4th, 8th or even 16th notes, he only uses hi-hat cymbals.

Well, I'm not a drummer, but... I think I found something.

Phil uses only hi-hat cymbals, there isn't a single use of any ride cymbal.

Well, I thought about that too, bit IT also has some songs with Simmons drums (IT, TTT...).

And, if we think the other way around, Shapes also has songs with regular drums (It's Gonna Get Better).

No song longer than 7 minutes ? (if we consider HBTS and SHBTS to be two different songs).

I wonder what the source is : the original master tapes, or an old CD (so they just extracted the files) ?

I think this is the one... He reconnected with Lavinia Lang, his former girlfriend.

Quote

Is it during the rehearsal scenes on Come Rain where he gestures at the keyboard and (in reference to Domino) says "It takes up a lot of space"?

I think it was in reference to all the "long songs", which Tony finds long in both time and keyboard space.

For Domino specifically, I think It's this passage :

Quote

He described the keyboard solo as being “deceptively difficult”.

Funny, because it's not the hardest solo to play, in terms of dexterity. Firth of Fifth, Robbery... are much harder.

I think the main difficulty was to quickly change presets (between strings and oboe), without any mistake. The same goes for Domino. Technically not too difficult, but there is a ton of program changes, MIDI zones... At least with the equipment he had at the time. For example, on the "Do you know what you have done" bit, he is playing three sounds at the same time : pad chords with his left hand, and two simultaneous sounds with his right hand : the melody with the kind-of-synth-voice sound, but also some marimba counterpoint, very discreet. I never figured out how he was doing it live. I watched it several times, and there is some note overlapping between the two sounds. So I think he was changing presets while playing, with a pedal or something. So, not that easy. You have to think about everything : "Ok, second time now, D major, that chord, ok, that sound, ok it's working, that melody, ok, now press the pedal, thank God the Emulator didn't crash, now I have to turn left, to switch the Synclavier on, phew it's working, geez Phil, watch your lyrics ! Shit I forgot to check my effect unit..."

And that for 2,5 hour...

Lucky Me

After The Lie

A Curious Feeling

Say You'll Never Leave Me

Thirty Three's

By You

That Night

The Border

The More I Hide It

Red Day On Blue Street

I Wanna Change The Score

The Final Curtain

A Piece Of You

Never Let Me Know

An Island In The Darkness

Quote

These will probably be the last concerts of the band in history and I would really like to hear Jesus He Knows Me, Abacab, Dreaming While You Sleep or, for example, In That Quiet Earth after 30-40 years. At least 3-4 shifts.

You're not alone. Everyone here would like some changes and some deep cuts to be played...

But you know, even if someone from the management is here, I highly doubt any member of the crew has any influence on the setlist. I can't see Geoff Callingham or Tony Smith saying to the guys "Play The Waiting Room, man", and Tony and Mike answering : "Great idea ! We should play Undertow too...".

At least, we know some changes already happened : Jesus was ready to be played, and they tried Misunderstanding.

Since it's quite a long hiatus until March, and their very, very last performances, maybe something unexpected will happen as they will have some time to prepare it. But I doubt it.

I noticed that too. And I really don't know why he does it that way now. I like the arpeggios he played in 1981-1983...

For 1978, I think he is just doubling Mike, as you said. I'm not a guitar player, but I think he plays some F# chord, just here (it goes quite fast and the picture is quite blurry), so we can assume that he does the same thing during the A major part too. I think it's why Mike's part sounds so "full" on this tour. There may be two players :

Another difference I noticed, with the exact same elements : For Behind The Lines Intro, during the B Major modulation, there is a DMaj/C | CMaj chord sequence repeated 4 times, during which Tony plays a little synth line which goes "A G F# D E F#, A G F# D E G F# D A(below the D)".

For this tour, Daryl plays that line alone with volume swells, Tony doesn't play it, he plays just the chords and doubles the bass with his left hand. On the studio version as well as in 1980, 1981, 1983 and 2007, the little line was played on his Prophet synth. In concert, Daryl was arpeggiating the chords (clean sound, or distorted in 2007).

(notice the slower tempo, too, haha)

(more energy, thanks Nic !)

Quote from DecomposingMan

I've never understood why YOSW is considered a "pop love song." The words are not typical love song lyrics, and the music really isn't all that poppy. I always thought it fit well with the overall mood of W&W.

Me too. Actually, I even understand why they left out Inside and Out. The overall sound of the song is completely different from the rest of the album. To me it belongs more to ATOTT...