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| re: I’ve been meaning to write and post this for a while now but just haven’t got round to it. Wembley concert | |
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pidunk 02:33 am UTC 06/05/07 |
| In reply to: | I’ve been meaning to write and post this for a while now but just haven’t got round to it. Wembley ... - wenners 09:24 pm UTC 06/04/07 |
> Sure in my own selfish way I was pissed at him for doing > Bat 3 the way he did you see this was my legacy as well. > This music has been my life for nearly 30 years now how > could he not consider what the implications of doing a Bat > Album with out Jim would mean to people like me. Ok I’m > being a tad melodramatic but you get the point. wenners, I know you are not thrilled so far in your thoughts of me, but I would like to reply with my thoughts of your post with relatings to my own history of being a fan, without any particular biases. We seem to be around the same age so in the sense that you later relate your perspective, I understand what you mean. When you say that it is your legacy, what you seem to mean is that anthematically, these songs even ignorant of the writer, for example, have been the seal of your life's pivotal points, and as such, you relate to them as extensions of yourself. As a fan, not ignorant of either the writer or the performer, you have a greater sophistication as a fan, than one who assumes that the performer is the equinox of all that is the performance. You know that it is not. You know that the songs come from Jim Steinman, and as an appreciator of the songs, and not the performance per se, you pay your homage for the meaning to your life's pivotal points, to the writer, and appropriately so. When you talk to someone about Bat Out Of Hell, you want them to know what you mean, and what it means to you, without the dilution by the encroachment of other forces in B&A^T3. You don't want to have to qualify your statements, explain your statements, or apologize for the fact that you are misunderstood if interpreted into meaning that you place B%A#T3 into the same category, if someone should misunderstand you. You want it to be simple. You want to say it simple. You want your statement to be understood. You are partly angry because now, you are, by other people, forced into a position of personal compromise. That is not selfish. Jim told Meat Loaf and mentioned such on his blog that his opinion of calling the album B*$AT#3 would be insulting to the audience. Understandably, you feel that insult. > >but I also wouldn’t want to miss it if he did. I would wager the bet that you really would not. You are angry, sure, with good justification, but for all the past and all the good, you would not. Not only that, but history and humanity have a way of winning out in the end. > Oh sure before you say it > there are other old farts out there singing still, The > Stones, The Who, Elton John, Bowie, to name a few. Now I > haven’t seen all of them live but you can’t tell me that > they sing high octane songs each 30 minutes long. Ok > slight exaggeration but you get the point. Fans who are not sophisticated do not look behind the artist to see what is behind. In the case of Elton John, there are thousands who say, Bernie who, regarding the lyrics, and John did also write with the lyrics of Tim Rice, similarly as did ALW. Elton John as a performer, performs the music he wrote, but did not write any but one verse (by his own statements) of his own lyrics, (that verse being one verse of "60 Years On", on the Tumbleweed Connection album). It was easy for me in the early era to be a devout fan of Elton John....we are talking about never missing an area concert, buying albums on release date, wearing tee shirts, having posters and articles on the wall, and knowing every detail published about the man and the work. But the last detail I became savvy to, was that he did not write the lyrics. I wasn't assuming that he would not and I was not looking for anything like that. So many fans of Meat Loaf are that way concerning where the songs came from. That is why so many money monsters are able to talk Meat into the viability of doing projects without Jim. That is why Meat ever got the idea in his head that there could be this strange hybrid of a project called B(A&T@3. That is why so many people accept it. But Meat knows, the vocal majority knows better because the Steinman fans are louder than everything else. Another example of fan ignorance comes in regard to the early works of David Bowie, where he is lauded to so much extent for the amazing work that is Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders Of Mars. Those songs, the way that they are arranged, is the work of Bowie's then guitarist, Mick Ronson. Mick spun off from Bowie later and made a stupendous album called Slaughter On Tenth Avenue which proved this point. After that, it was no mystery why and how the style of Bowie's works had changed. Mick is no longer with us, but one could realize he also had known Jim, when they see that Mick worked with Ellen Foley in 1979, and Sparks in 1976. Jim is a friend of the Mael brothers, whom also had been produced by Rundgren. Of course you would already know this. The issue of fan sophistication is one that comes up from time to time, when being a fan who is both sophisticated and inquisitive into the works that are loved. It is understandable that you want the integrity of your work as a fan to remain intact. > > Then I started to think where and who can I go to see that > is going to sing 10 or more Steinman songs. There is no > one. So in the worse case scenario I would be able to sing > at the top of my voice some great if not most of the > greatest Steinman tunes not having to worry about the > neighbours thinking an animal was dying. Absolutely. If B#A6T@3 is functional as an excuse for this privilege to come about, why not appreciate it for that? There is nothing quite so special as having the chance to let loose with something so close to your heart without having others think you are strange. > > So the show started I concentrated and with my untrained > musical ear I was determine to pick up on any lip-syncing > but I couldn’t tell. What I have observed about lip synching on concert stages came from the experience of having attended 74 concerts of various assorted amazing and not so amazing artists in the course of a two year period between 1973 and 1976. I attended shows at New York Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Nassau Coliseum, Felt Forum, Avery Fisher Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Bitter End, The Bottom Line (they opened around 1975, and I saw some shows there), and the first concert I ever attended was to see Seals and Crofts at the auditorium of Madison High School in Brooklyn, in 1970. The first major concert I attended (S&C were still so obscure that the high school show was not sold out and it was before their radio airplays) was in 1971 at Madison Square Garden when I saw Rod Stewart with Faces. The last major concert I attended was Elton John double billing with Quarterflash at Irvine Meadows in California, in 1982. The last semi-major concert was through won tickets to see Peter Paul and Mary at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in 1983 or so. It got for me, to be a boring experience, to be able to anticipate whether or not there would be an encore, or whether or not there was a tape backup to the performance. Ho hum. Encore: you know there is going to be an encore if the band keeps the amplifier lights lit on the equipment on stage. I imagined what it would be like if everyone knew like me, and didn't applaud...would they force the change, and compel the band NOT to have an encore? I did not bother using the energy for an outcome that I knew would take place. Let the other audience members spend their energy. The Moody Blues had a policy not to play encores. They did not keep the amplifiers lit on the stage. People cheered and cheered and wasted their collective breaths, and I knew, the show was over. The only time I did not know what was going to transpire was when John Lennon made his famous appearance with Elton John in 1976, and neither, it seemed, did the other members of the audience. So, on that night, a new phenomenon took place, which came to be taken for granted as others decided to carry the behavior to other shows. For the first time I ever saw in concerts, people got out of their chairs and lit matches and lighters to ovate the performance and beg for an encore of John Lennon with Elton John, and this was done for such a sustained period of time, that the air got thick inside the 20,000 seat arena, and it was hard for me, way up in the last row of the place in a section dubbed "heaven", to breathe. Just when I thought I might pass out, I heard the ceiling fans begin to roar, of the MSG's ventilation air conditioning system. The air cleared, the guys took back the stage, and an amazing history was made. Whatever gets you through the night. Lip synching has been referred to me as a tape backup. I knew when there was a tape backup when it was not part of the instrumentation on the stage. Clearly in the absence of a visible Moog, there would not be possible a Moog segment without a tape backup. With voice, there would also be such. To know lip synching from a tape backup, I think I might look at the level of perfection of a vocal, combined with the motion of the body....too much motion makes a perfect vocal impossible. But Meat has a history of moving much to his vocals.....you could also look at the distance between the mouth and the microphone. You can look at when he takes his breaths onstage and where the phrasings are on the vocal. Whether you could actually perceive these things is probably much different than knowing what you might like to perceive, to know the difference. > > Now on a second note unless my memory and powers of > concentration or even a mental block of some sorts the > only non Steinman song that was sung was Blind as a bat > apart from the intro to the second half when the band sung > Alive. (Someone correct me if I’m wrong) Now personally > maybe im reading to much into this but I kind of take that > as an admission that he feels the non Steinman songs just > aren’t up to it as it s a bit quick to drop the song > that’s the title of the current album. This is just my > humble opinion. > > But maybe just maybe he actually realises what a mistake > it was to do this album without Jim? > I think that there is much going into his new stance, and I do not think it has to do with regret as much as realization, like you said. Meat has realized that he has caused many people to have to explain what they mean when they refer to their personal anthems of Bat Out Of Hell works, and it is like getting one's hand caught in the cookie jar. One could be embarrassed. | |
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| Previous: | re: I’ve been meaning to write and post this for a while now but just haven’t got round to it. Wemb ... - Dr_Rock 06:35 am UTC 06/05/07 |
| Next: | bitsy correction: not 60 Years On, it was Border Song - pidunk 02:36 am UTC 06/05/07 |
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