I very much miss the improvs and dirty tomato visuals from the shows of yore, my fan theories regarding the current more straightforward live gigs are:
- cost: mixing of live visuals, inflatables, etc. eats into R/K’s own payday and we all know Spotify, YouTube and the like don’t pay artists as much as physical sales used to
- age/skill: Reading 99 (or wherever that seminal slow Rez was from) was 20 years ago! They had Emerson on stage then and Pricey during the last long string of the more “anything can happen” gigs. It can’t be easy to manage the chaos with just 2 guys in their 60s, especially when one is dancing and singing. (also another person to pay)
- audience: festival shows means festival crowds, which trend younger. I’d bet the average kid at one of these doesn’t know the title of Rez, so it’s slapped up on the screen for easy Googling while going out of one’s head.
Could be way off base here and don’t mean to sound ageist or jaded, but maybe they just can’t practically produce the kind of gig we all want from them anymore? The spirit of improv/controlled chaos/what will happen next is very much alive in the Drift series, though, so as long as they keep making music and coming around live, even if only to DJ until their 90s, I’m a happy fanboy
