Alabama concert: Not totally live

[LiveMusic]

We've beat this around before on this forum but I just attended an Alabama concert and it surfaced again. I have mixed feelings about it... both from a fan standpoint and a performing musician standpoint.

 

As far as performing, if I had a band, that would solve it all but I don't, so using sequences to augment my solo sound intrigues me. Haven't done it yet but I admit I haven't rejected the idea. Especially when I see people making darn good money using sequencing. I even saw a female duo recently who had ZERO musicians... just them and their tracks and their voices. And guess what. Brought the friggin' house down. People loved them.

 

If _I_ elected to use sequences, it would seem hypocritical for me to be bugged by others doing it, so I'm gonna have to deal with that.

 

Anyway, back to Alabama. The venue seated about 3,000 and I was in the back but the three guitarists playing were right next to one another, so it wasn't hard for me to follow what was going on. And I swear, I heard tracks that were NOT live. And that kinda made me feel bad. Like, cheated or something. Alabama is a big name... still. Major player. There were 11 musicians on stage. Why in the world they needed sequencing... I dunno. It was VERY subtle. You'd have to be a musician to even notice it. They were acoustic guitar parts that were piped in. What's different about this show is that these very small parts were all I noticed. 11 musicians were playing LIVE! Just seemed more "deceptive" than a band who is obviously using heaving sequencing.

 

I think the only way I could be wrong about this is if the keyboard guy was "playing" an acoustic guitar part. I guess that's possible. If so... my apologies to Alabama.

 

If it wasn't live, would you feel "bad" or not?

[fantasticsound]

11 musicians on stage for a band like Alabama, and you believe they sequenced an acoustic guitar part? In my experience, not likely. Now if you had said there were 5 musicians on stage, I'd be more open to the possibility. My experience is, if you're going to pay that many people to play live, their going to earn their keep by covering all the parts, with the exception of multiple keyboard parts.

 

I'll see if I can get an inside point of view, as several friends of mine are/have been lighting crew for Alabama. Despite not being audio, they'd definately know if parts weren't played.

 

That said, the keyboard player with Lila McCann, when I was out for a run with her, sequenced some strings on one song, because the piano part required all his attention, and the string parts added a lot to the song. Personally, I can forgive this use of tracks, as I hardly expect an up and coming act to be able to afford a string section for a single song. Other than that, they arranged each song to fit the available doubles on the tour. (keys/acoustic, fiddle/acoustic, steel acoustic)

 

If the acoustic part you spoke of is that important, I'd expect the band to lose another part to preserve that piece of the arrangement.

 

Still, it is possible you're correct.

 

My .02

[LiveMusic]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

I'll see if I can get an inside point of view, as several friends of mine are/have been lighting crew for Alabama. Despite not being audio, they'd definately know if parts weren't played.

 

Neil, why do you say they would know? It's not like this is something that would be widely known, right? It's the only thing I noticed. Subtle. But I definitely heard it... I was watching the guitarists intently and their picking and I swear there was another track playing. How would lighting guys know that? (Unless they are musicians, as well... which they probably are... and they're paying close attention.)