This just makes me less excited about the band again. If Fred rejoins the band and they record a new album with him and John, that would get me excited.
Demo/Early Live Spin actually goes even harder at times in my opinion. I think it was toned down a bit for the album and I'd love to hear a harder take on it recorded proper. Probably won't happen, but had you said Fred was gonna be playing with TBS again last week I'd have felt about the same. :P
The reality is that no matter how much these bands don’t want to be “nostalgia acts”, the album plays pay the bills.
For what it's worth Fred is really good at learning songs he didn't play on (just see how he did with Say Anything, he killed it night after night). The idea is for him to fill in for John, not to just play the songs from when he was in the band. Also I posted some inside tea of why Mark isn't in the band anymore and nobody noticed or cared lol
The footage of Liar is even better. Adam looks like he's having a blast performing that song in a way I haven't seen in a long time. Fred's guitar solo alone gets him all pumped up
The Nostalgia act is s silly thing for bands to say all the time. I don’t think it’s wrong to do album plays. Particularly if it’s one run across the country. I’m personally not that interested in those tours but I bet a lot is people would come out for a Louder Now tour that haven't been following anything they’ve done in 10 plus years.
This was true of the run of holiday shows in general. I do not think it was Fred specific. Liar was like the third to last song they played that night. We’ve talked pretty extensively about this band feeding off a crowd, and these shows specifically were some of the LOUDEST crowds I have been in for them recently (especially Mulcahy’s night 2 and Starland night 1). I think videos from any of these show similar excitement. Looking back at some of my videos, even the TAYF songs that feel kind of rote at this point feel alive in a new way. He even sat on the security guard’s shoulders and went up to the barricade (in the crowd?) during cute, which is not a common occurrence from him at shows anymore. (Also Nathan usually plays Fred’s solo these days and kills it)
I have no doubt that Fred would be able to learn the songs (he literally did this with TAYF). My concern is that I don’t like his voice compared to John’s. I even prefer John’s voice on the where you want to be songs, which I know is controversial around these parts. Happy for everybody who will be happy about this, but I also think there will be a subsection of those people who go to the shows (especially if they fell off after louder now) and will be…sorely disappointed by what they get. Switching out Fred and John is not going to fix what most people think are the issues with tbs live and I think there are some people (not everybody!) who are going to have a hard time with that.
Tour with both John and Fred, but they split all of Adam's parts, and Adam does all the second vocalist parts.
okay smartass, I'm saying Fred touring with them doesn't mean they're just gonna play WYWTB and Louder Now like someone was suggesting. he's a very versatile player and learns stuff really fast. He learned the whole Lemonheads discography in almost no time when they asked him to fill in for them
yeah I think approaching it with this perspective is wrong. Fred's not here to "fix" TBS (although he did have some feedback about how fast they're playing some songs). He's helping them out temporarily. John is still the official guitarist
Well John has been playing the Louder Now songs for 14 years and it sounds like he still hasn't learned them so
Oh no I know that! I just think that there’s a vocal population on other websites that actually do have this perspective.