Oblivion Ball Tokyo Live Streaming

[dubman]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

What I am saying is, why the need to critique each gig as if each one ought to be an innovative work of art in itself? Because we are between 50 and 100 geeks on here that listen to, and watch where possible, every single gig we can get our hands on, does that give us the right to moan because the gigs aren't "different" or "special" enough from our personal obsessive-compulsive view-point?

There were 20,000 people in Tokyo tonight. What did they want to hear? What did the band want them to hear? The singles/strong tracks from the album and a melange of their classic numbers - each with a little twist all its own: a little improve here, a new intro there. They have an album to promote, and more ephemeral fans than us to please. There were lots of nice new bits were in this gig, but some people just seem to fixate on what they personally have heard too much of recently - what they DIDN'T like about it rather than focussing on what was new and interesting and exciting.

It just annoys me, when you compare them to the other kinds of plug-and-play bands out there who never even change a setlist from one venue to the next, much less improvise on their numbers, to hear people having a whinge all the time. We are LUCKY we have had these gigs streamed. We are the lucky ones who get to go to two, three, four gigs during a tour, sometimes more. We are lucky that we can buy the live CDs now. How many boots are out there of 5 or 6 shows from a single tour from previous years? I bet there aren't actually 5 or 6 from the same tour. And if there are, I also bet that, if you gave them a listen back to back, you would suddenly realise that, actually, this is what Underworld has always done. Two or three new tracks to promote the album, and a selection of hits.

Like I said, we were spoilt with the 3 hours shows and Cocoon, because they had no new album to push at that time - in fact, I would go further and suggest that we were hearing a variety of new stuff that they had created, a DARC here, a Globe there, a Faxed Invitation somewhere else, to test the market and see what got the best responses, and got the forums chattering. One or two new tunes out of a 3 hour set doesn't make much of a dent, which left plenty of time for the classics and the less mainstream stuff as well.

I understand the need to critique to a certain extent, but sometimes it is really done from the Ivory Tower of the ardent fan and Dirt, and doesn't take into account the bigger picture.

i'm not even asking that much, just pointing out that it's all the same. i'm not asking for a dogman/leave home/why why why/mama nuxx improv for an hour followed by a 30 minute dirty epic. i think it's valid to say every show has been the same without poo-poohing ourselves as obsessives. it's not an ivory tower position it's just a disappointing observation. i dont really see what you feel the need to defend. if it's all whining to your ears then that's just as annoying to someone who likes to see something different. i dont care what other bands do in comparison, i know underworld have been a lot more fluid in the past and if you want to argue on that, then let's get obsessive and break it down:

1996: 5 gigs: quart, roskilde, ECG, reading, and werchter. werchter sees the most tremendous rendition of cowgirl ever, reading has the Bootleg Babies version of rez with the ludicrously slow build up, fewer tracks in favor of longer extensions, each one built up in reasonably different fashion. they all end differently, each gig has a distinctive vibe to it. different versions of confusion the waitress, original version of born slippy may or may not show up with nuxx. werchter is frenetic while ecg seems more regulated and club oriented, and quart and roskilde sounds more appropriate for a large festival crowd.

98/99: from i love techno to mojo to zaal to new years in london to belfort to koln to fuji, each one is all over the map. cups either goes into cherry pie or jumbo or confusion. drastically different version of rowla coming from what sounds like an honest improv in london, not to mention the KOS with moaner lyrics, the songs dont feel like it's one simply knocked down with a notch after another. again, it's all very fluid. each show ends differently. bruce lee and dirty guitar and juanita and kittens may or may not show up, and it's a different incarnation and interpretation each time (some much better than others)

2000-2002: dont even get me started here. all i need to say is electraglide. they pull a version of confusion thats one of their loosest, most abstract versions and ranks among their best. this was the time where they managed to juggle a large discography and keep it fresh. cappe ffuno creeps in here and there, ref 010101 shows up, push upstairs leads to spikee leads to leave home. kiteless leads to spoonman lyrics seguing into kittens. other days they could stand alone. festivals would sound drastically different than regular slot sets in that it was desperately crazy the entire time whereas the more regular tour shows felt looser and more natural. DA3d and momove would sneak in here and there...

i'm tempted to get into 2003 and their maida vale event of ne'er before done stuff, but i think the point has long been made with far too many words. bootlegs or broadcasted, we've had access to these things throughout many years, and the comparison is really obvious to me, you most definitely can entertain a crowd of thousands within a couple of hours while keeping it fresh and different most of the time because they've been doing it for years before that. it's not nearly as flexible now and is getting to sound like routine in comparison to that, the biggest variation is in which darren price bit to use as a bridge to the next if they dont just go quiet altogether. i also think i disagree that each concert has a different twist in their stand-bys. they really don't. out of the liveherenow sets, only london2 really knocked me on my ass due to minor tweaks that made all the hits so much more ruthless and devastating. and while the other gigs had their moments of bamboo and loud glam bucket guitar the hits and crocodile/BB specifically did the same things, and became placeholders *for* these moments instead of being in it. i can't point to a version of pearls girl or jumbo or beautiful burnout out of them and tell you which came from where. and if you think you have a problem with that notion and have to specifically defend their honor about it, then you can keep doggedly and indiscrimately and uselessly lavishing paise on them for deigning to interact with us whiners instead of, HEY, actually interacting back. i could be niggling and weird and wrong, yeah, but something feels very off about the relentless repetition of this tour and i think it could stand to be adressed instead of plugging your ears and talking about privelige. they're a creative force like anything else and deserve a response