Toby posted:

"Secondly. It costs them personally a huge amount of money to ship all that gear around the world when they tour. Do you really think they would do it if it weren't all really needed? Also at festivals over the years where I've seen their roadies set up before their slot I've more than once seen them having difficulties getting stuff patched in. T in the Park 2004 they were late coming on after much faffing with a bit of kit.

I don't think all of that was a put on just to make them 'seem' like they're doing it for real".

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Yeah spot on. I think it would be more like Kraftwerk's live show if so with just the laptops, very minimal. Not suggesting Kraftwerk just play a cd and pretend but you get what I mean...

yeah well in mine it is.

"Yeah, and his sig shows clearly what he prefers the most! Uncle Slipvin: "Give it to me, ya naughty little teddy bear! Quack quack"

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ROFL, I have to admit that this cracked me up.

"yeah well in mine it is."

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So no 'kermit dance' for you then? Shit.

lol (*~*)

Jesus christ.

"Jesus christ."

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No, Kermit.

You are way too serious for your age.

any1 seen kraftwerk live? I dare say there show has changed much over the years

Not much really. Good 'ol Kraftwerk!

I suppose so. But your way not perverted at what ever age you are. Like to the point where it scares people.

Ah - that's just Slipvin bein' Slipvin, Jenny. It's sort of his shtick getting a rise out of people. God knows we've been at each other's throats, had me about pulling my hair out a number of times. :lol: It's best to just chuckle and move on...

Interesting thread!

I've been watching the chems live for 10 years.

Back in the day.... (ahhhh, dave exhales nostalgically) the chems live sets were a lot more varied. the majority of the set would be triggered using the MPC giving huge scope for freestyling. But, with midi + analog equipment being an old and retarded system, it also gave a lot of scope for technical errors.

Often early gigs would be disrupted when equipment goes wrong. Songs would stop half way through. The crowd would always just go mental until the chems started something new. But this to me was a key factor in how live it was. The very fact that things went wrong.

I watched them at brixton academy 3 years ago from the balcony where I could see loads of what they were doing. From what i could gather, tom was effectively just mixing levels on a huge desk whilst ed hit the odd drum, made a squiggly noise but mostly just drank beer and put his arms in the air. Occasionally the set did did opt out of its pre determined path and tom bashed a cool sequnce out on the MPC. But on the whole, the set was... or at least the sequence of the set was predetermined.

Don't take this the wrong way, i'm not cussing them. I was just suprised. But then the chemical brothers live has come on leaps and bounds. The visuals are now all sequenced to the audio. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to get such exact sychronicity if the entire set was coming from an MPC. They must use Logic/Cubase or whatever to keep the majority of the set in sync with the visuals.

And as opposed to early gigs, things don't go wrong anymore! How many times in the last 5 or so yrs have u seen a chemical brothers live set stop dead in the middle? not often.

So, what i'm saying is i kind of agree with everyone in this thread. depending on how you interpret it it could seem like the chems don't do much on stage. but surely adding external FX, changing levels, playing ryhtms over the top, triggering samples and making squiggly noises whilst drinking beer and throwing said arms in the air in front of one of the worlds best light/lazer/visual shows is in many ways a live set. even if the backbone of the set is predetermined.

As for shipping all that equipment around at such vast expense. If you got paid £50,000 for each live set, i reckon you'd make it look as authentic as humanly possible!

Please don't take this the wrong way. i love seeing the chems live! its a fantasic experience!

byeee!

:)

Good post Gecko. As far as synchronizing the visuals to the music is concerned - there is some amazingly sophisticated kit out there these days for timing visual cues to whats happening live with the music. I think you're right about what you say - most if not all of the Chems set is very predetermined and pre-programmed but that doesn't mean they can't add lib sections and have the visuals following whatever random stuff they throw in on top.

I've never heard anything about tracks "just stopping" -- that is so cool. it must have added an incredible personal touch!

on the other hand I haven't heard any tours after 1995 (maybe 96) where the tracklist and transitions changed radically show to show (or even over the tour at all). rather in the beginning things I think had less live control.... I think it used to be a sequence of samples and loops that they'd set up in advance and simply trigger when things come and then mix it all up. I think it's become a lot more advanced than that. now, instead of predetermining the _entire_ flow of the set loop by loop, it seems the core of the tracks is set and maintained, then detailed sections and transitions and mixing are all controlled live. for instance they now are able to add totally new sections to tracks on the fly without disturbing the flow of the set (where before they'd have to turn of sequences and restart em).

but at any rate it's certainly not magical.... they're doing stuff, the gear is doing stuff and where that crosses is where it gets personality.

Didn't see if anyone had mentioned this yet, but a lot of the work seems to be in selecting which filters to use - gives a v. different feel to the track. I've especially noticed this in recent gigs on Do It Again and HBHG...

burst generator and arr too, they seem to do a lot off filter/lfo tweaking this tour, think that's done by the midi controller or the machinedrumm

seems everything can be automated and everything can be done manually... it's interesting to listen for when they take over and when they relax control.

You mean when they don't fight control? :p

Yeah, as Toby said Its deffo amazing that Tom gets the mix spot on every time, anyone who plays dance music live has got to appreciate that, they sequence it live so so well.