Re: hard haunted mansion
 

fully understand your point of view here but (and i have this from the horses mouth,well friends of friends of the band) underworld have had some patchy responses from promoters in the states after some gigs that didn't sell or not as well as expected and no-one wants to book them to do a show in a venue that they can take production to plus no-one wants to risk pulling a 30 something audience who's raving days might be behind them and only can make it if they've got a sitter etc etc.
the hard people like underworld and think they'll work with their audience even if their audience are pill munching nutters (weren't we once?) and hard will pay underworld enough so they can bring a show,play some other gigs and wont lose $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ doing it.
its fucking tough on older fans (and i count myself in that number) but numbers have dwindled since the glory days of electronica and underworld lose $$$$$$$ EVERYTIME they play in america.
the only thing that will change this situation might be a great reaction to the new album and loads of luck (maybe oprah's a secret fan?).
fingers crossed for coachella 2011 eh? its about time again.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Sort of a self fulfilling disaster scenario though isn't it? Surely you can't keep an audience when you only play 4 cities when you 'tour' America and charged 30-50 bucks a show. Maybe the boys could strip down their live show and actually TOUR AMERICA instead of playing NYC, Chicago, LA and SF. That's not a tour. We don't need a stage full of fucking inflatables to impress us. We don't need 3 huge screens with projections. UW on a small to medium sized club tour across America would do a lot more for their fan base in America than playing 4 or 5 times every 2 or 3 years. If you don't live in Chicago, NY or LA and don't like going to festivals, you are shit out of luck for seeing Underworld in America. Bands get new fans and keep old fans by touring. If Underworld can't figure out a way to tour without it costing a fortune, then the music has lost focus. We don't need a circus act, we just want the tunes. Underworld can rock a crowd without all the bells and whistles. Saying they lose money every time they play as an excuse for why they don't play here more is bullshit in my opinion. If they played here more with a stripped down stage show, they'd be able to draw bigger crowds. Save the elaborate productions for the festivals or one-offs.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

fair point but i think you'll find they tried that a number of times thru the 80's and 90's.
they aren't young men anymore and from what i know the desire to schlepp it around doing small shows isn't there.
they like the bells and whistle's and that part of the excitement of doing the shows for them.
i think they'd need to take 25 years of their age's to be the band you suggest ! :)

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Wait, they didn't sell out the 99 BF tour? I was under the impression that tour was a big success. After that tour they basically abandoned the idea of touring America. If i'm wrong, then I apologize, but i'm pretty sure the 99 tour (their last actual tour of America) was a big success.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Plus, didn't they play a handful of 3hr shows in Benelux between AHDO and OBW? Those were small club shows and very fun for the band by all accounts. How much did they make on those shows?

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

i dunno what they or anyone else considers success or if the tour sold out.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

BLD, I feel you, but I live 3.5 hours from Chicago, and I'd drive that in a heartbeat to see them...ever since I started following them religiously in 2001, I don't think they've been there since. Totally agreed that LA, Oakland, and Boston is not a tour...how about something for those of us who don't live on the coast?

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

can't really do that sorta thing when you are in the states with a full crew in tow.
works ok when you can get the train home the next day.
also those show's were part of larger tours.

anyway, all your points are pretty valid but i suspect r&k wouldn't agree with them and have decided how they wanna spend their time as a band.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

The Benelux 2005 gigs had the green laser, and karls mic/cam for Lenny Penne/YDS. Not really high budget on the effects. Only 3 of the 3hr gigs (the 4th was I Love Techno, and the Yellow Room was soon totally full). I must say they were some of the best Underworld gigs ive ever been to (i was at all four of them. 4 days, 4 gigs). As for money made, well who knows but the tickets prices were reasonable. Of course, Underworld are popular in NL, and are always welcome at ILT. The Ancienne Belgique gig was a sell out in 2008 too, were the Amsterdam HMH 2005/2008 and Rotterdam 2008 gigs. I see your point about "low budget" though. There is a difference between a 20+ city tour of the USA where "schlepping" would definitely be the word to describe it. But there is always a compromise and a 10 city tour (and i mean fairly big cities by US standard) would be possible IMO. But what do i know... I only see the EU side of things and have only seen UW once in NYC (great idea, Central Park by the way! what a gig!)

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

I spent about 1500 to see them in 07. Two shows in SF and one in Denver. I paid airfare and hotel for all days. I know about traveling to see them. They last played Seattle in 99. A show that sold out quickly.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

man....you've joined them in the twilight years :D;)

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Fair enough. I'm just very invested in the band and would love to see them more.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

I've had to travel minimum 3.5 hours to see UW 4 times in the UK so don't be thinking you've got it easy. For the iTunes show I needed to travel to London, pay for vitals and eat/drink. Was it worth it? Yes.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Lightweights. Come back when you have to fly a minimum of 2500+ miles to see any show. :p

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

i thought so too myself...when 1992-2002 came out, i thought no way they would ever produce 16 more tracks of this quality again..

however, it is 2010 now and they are getting damn close! i've always been pretty amazed by the consistancy of these guys.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

You live in what most people call 'paradise'. No sympathy for you. You choose to live in an island paradise rather than actual civilization.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

After last year's fiasco, don't you think the HARD crew will put a little more effort into making sure things don't go crazy? If anything I'm wondering if the security will be overbearing.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

They already successfully had Hard Haunted Mansion at the Shrine last year, so it should be fine again this year.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

A crucial component of touring is awareness. If Underworld aren't filling venues, it's because people don't know they're still putting new music out, assuming they've even heard of Underworld in the first place. I can tell you that hardly anybody I spoke to at the aborted Hardfest gig last year had any idea who Underworld were.

The solutions to that problem are -- and here I go again -- Internet presence and content distribution. All the major electronic acts that have remained or become relevant in the last ten years, from oldies like Daft Punk to the new lot like Fischerspooner or Justice, have done so in part by making their music wildly available and heavily promoted. Underworld willingly opted out of that industry system -- in my opinion, to their peril. With the exception of A Hundred Days Off, Underworld have spent most of the last decade making it nearly impossible for the casual listener to discover and obtain their music:

The early albums' availability is spotty at best; their greatest hits package is, I believe, out-of-print; their RiverRun series of EPs and singles were released in the most bullshit fashion imaginable; the 3-disc Live in Tokyo record, arguably the best Underworld release of all time, was practically impossible to obtain; the Sunshine soundtrack was hopelessly delayed; Oblivion With Bells was a proper album with proper avenues of distribution, but the promotion was dreadful: homemade music videos, bizarre single choices in the form of Holding the Moth and Ring Road, assuming you could buy them in the first place (I don't have a record player, so no Ring Road for me). Of course, some of this stuff is available digitally, but what if nobody knows it exists at all?

Finally, the Underworld website is demonstrably lacking, to put it mildly. True, the shop is now equipped with a good chunk of the back catalogue, assuming there are no longer problems buying any of it, but the site itself looks really unprofessional, is difficult to navigate, is home to no useful information beyond the dubious shop and barebones tour dates -- no bio, no gallery, and no free music beyond what's available in that weird pop-up media player despite releasing so god damn much of it over the years.

But it looks like they're turning it around this time with Barking. DJs are actually able to get their hands on the material, for one thing. "Scribble" is making the rounds in the rave scene here in the States, from what I've been hearing. Thankfully the Twitter and Facebook integration has become more useful as well with relevant information and some coherent fan interaction.

I get so frustrated about all this stuff because I think Underworld are the best band in the world. Barking seems poised to be a Beaucoup-level success, so hopefully Underworld will finally emerge from the underground.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

^ What he said.

One thing I can't stand is the work I have to put in to get different versions of songs. It it wasn't for RTSR, I'd probably just have the albums and what their website has to offer.

I had to torrent the Tokyo CD (let me buy it and I will, otherwise I'm not sorry) just to hear stuff I've never heard (You Do Scribble).

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Good post, khouri...UW are a very, very easy group to get people into as they have such an insane amount of quality material, and yet they are not really too well known here...

I too am hoping Barking will do the trick the way BF did in the 90's. I thought OWB was a good album, in the scheme of 2007 it definitely makes my top 10. But for this group, I was just kind of wondering why only a few of the great tracks we were hearing actually made the cut. It looks like Barking is going to be the album that lands them all, and yeah, "Scribble" getting pretty big, from what I can tell the response to it has been huge.

I had to torrent the Tokyo disc too. Ever since EE came out I had been waiting for a great live release like this. I burned a copy for a friend of mine who hadn't really heard much UW and he says he plays those discs all the time. There is so much to applaud UW for but for the most part I have to agree.

Re: hard haunted mansion
 

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Set times posted:

http://www.hardfest.com/images/2010/...s02noslice.jpg

OT : Underworld presence and availability
 

i think this has pretty much been true ever since they've toured
the US ... they've had a smaller indie following for most of their
history bar the 'trainspotting'/'born slippy' single...


actually, their music has ALWAYS been hard to find even when they started..
how many copies of m.e/the hump are there? their early 12" singles on JBO,
the skyscraper single, etc. etc... i would say the opposite, its a LOT EASIER
NOW to find their music online / amazon / ebay, etc... you can find all the
main albums, and some selected singles...and of course all the recent stuff
online..

i can't speak for the other bands you mentioned, but relevancy is
mostly subjective i would think... if a band is more productive or has
a bigger media presence, good for them and their fans... we have this
board, and other ways of getting the information..


as i mentioned, its not that hard to find all of their albums.. yeah, sure
the riverrun EP was not a fullblown release for the masses (and wasn't
meant to be), and how much interest in the film soundtrack for a non-hit
movie is there? so how much did that really impact them?

how many of their singles have been 'obvious'? how many of the mixes
actually sounded like the original back when they started? only 'club
friendly' mixes seem to be more predominant compared to their
experimental ones... if people are fans of the group, they'll find out
how to get the singles, which sites have them, and of course
torrent/download them .... as they do for a lot of other groups..

yeah, well it's always been a work in progress, and who goes to
just one site anyways? there's always been some good fansites
and other places to look up more detailed information ... just because
it's not centrally located really shouldn't deter someone if they
really wanted more indepth information..

hmm..did you really consider 'beaucoup fish' that succesfull?

although i agree with what you said at times,
(and yes, even being booked on a late night
talk show miight point to a different agenda.)
but ask yourself, do they really need or even
want to 'emerge'?

later
-1

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Interesting evening tonight. More improv than usual, partly because of Karl's voice. At the start of Scribble, he started to sing, then covered his mouth with some piece of cloth and left the stage while Rick and Darren played sans lyrics at first, and then Rick sang a verse with the vocoder effects until Karl returned.

They also played Nu Train without Karl entirely and Cowgirl pretty much without him until the end (his silhouette was singing on the LED screens, but I think that was pre-recorded. It wasn't live.) They cut Jigsaw out of the setlist and there was no encore.

There was however a blistering version of Nuxx that they were messing with in ways I haven't heard from them in a long time. Weird loops and effects...and you could tell they were just having a ball jamming on it, much like they used to in years gone by. The place went nuts. Hot crowd, and despite Karl's voice and obvious sickness (he even looked a little washed out and exhausted), he was slamming it for pretty much the whole show.

I hate these 18+ kiddie raver events, but I'm glad I sacked up and went. Does anyone know if this was broadcast on that Red Bull Music Academy site?

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

The Rez/Cowgirl silhouette was live, but the shadow screen was off stage due to the setup, so it was a video feed of the shadow screen. This is the same way it was at the Cow Palace.

We were supposed to get the shadow screen last night at San Diego. They had found room for it on the left side of the stage, but when showtime came it was gone. I never did find out why it didn't happen. Maybe Karl didn't want to do it because of how he was feeling, or maybe they tested it during soundcheck and it didn't work in the small space, I dunno.

For those that think they just "press play" on the new songs, well, that's definitely not the case. As mentioned, Karl ran off stage after the beginning of Scribble, and so they had to jam the middle part while he made his way back.

We got some nice Monkey Wink during the end jam of Nuxx, so that was fun.

Overall, this show was a lot better than I expected. Especially considering what happened with Hard Summer last year, I was impressed with the organization and security of this event. The crowd was better at this show than the Cow Palace. They seemed interested and engaged, and showed some level of recognition for some of the songs. I'm not sure if it was due to the age difference (18+ vs 16+), the time that UW was on, or if LA is better than SF.

But yeah, I'm glad I went too. I was feeling some Underworld fatigue, and just plain fatigue in general after 3 days of traveling. At some points today I felt, eh, maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't see them tonight. But all of that melted away once the show started.

I didn't get bored with the setlist like I thought I might. It's quite a good live set. I know some people have been disappointed, but it's still an Underworld show, and the band and crew put in their all each night and make in entertaining. They're going to continue with this set for the album promotion for the rest of this year. But I hear Rick's itching to get back to improv-y shows, so I think we'll see a return to the Underworld Live we love next year.

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Karl really gutted that one out last night...INCREDIBLE energy. One of the better Underworld sets I've seen. I absolutely hated the crowd, though...I can't count the number of times I was shoved aside so a train of kids could burrow their way to or away from the front of the stage.

And what the heck was A-Trak doing during the butchering of "Robot Rock"?

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Poor Karl, he was quite ill according to the last post on U/Wlive but I didn´t know he was so bad.
I hope the smell and taste of Essex is healing him by now :)

Very welcomed but not at the sacrifice of Karl´s voice I hope... much love

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Starting to upload my UW videos from Hard + 4th and b shows, here one from the HHM:

Linky

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Very cool. thanks pianopisser!

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

So, is there a setlist for this one? It is difficult to tell if they played the full 'standard' set.. or the 'festival' set... also i see someone mentioned Monkey Wink NUXX...

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

It was the standard, but no Diamond Jigsaw, and yes, Monkey Wink during Nuxx. No encore.

Re: 2010-10-31 HARD Haunted Mansion - Los Angeles, CA
 

Updated http://uwlive.rowla.com/gigs/view/423 thanks todd.