99% of bands could learn a thing or ten from jam bands. I admire that shit out of Widespread Panic and Phish and the Dead. Even bands like DMB who have built a live empire with numerous versions of songs, interpolations, unique setlists every single night. DMB has never played the same set ever. I’m sure the same goes for the other bands mentioned. The live culture around those bands is fascinating. Vampire Weekend seems to be one of the few to get it. And they might be headed that way. They could easily jam out a ton of their songs. Essentially giving the fans “new” songs. Ezra mentions jamming out “Big Blue”, “2021”, etc in the new podcast. And like a lot of the great songs from the bands above it’s so cool to see them change over the years and become new evolving life forms.
I don't want to see every band play for four hours but if I love them enough / if they have the discography to back it up (VW does) then hell yeah The best show I've ever seen was Springsteen in August 2016, played for over four hours including covers and deep cuts in place of ~the hits~ like Thunder Road, it was the coolest experience.
I wish I had the attention span for jam bands but I agree that incorporating the elements of never playing the same song exactly the same is cool, plus randomly teasing covers
every band that has the means to do so should be legally mandated to do this lol. I like but don't love Phish, but this is one thing that they 1000% get right
personally for me its less about jamming or mixing up setlists necessarily but as Hyden says in that piece just taking live music as seriously as you take your recorded music. Have it be as important to you as a band as anything else.
On the note of Springsteen, that's something he does right too. You can buy soundboard recordings of all of his shows online.
Shoutout to all the reasonable people who can respect what Phish does in this thread even though they don't like their music.
lol that pod makes clear that Ezra is a True Head, respect. If you're up on JGB you are a real one also "all i do is lose..." makes me think of "since it costs a lot to win..." every time
This is just such a delight to listen to, I can’t say enough good things about it. Doesn’t feel long at all and it just grooves and there’s so many melodies and catchy hooks and ugh it all sounds so beautiful. Favorites without thinking too much about it: Harmony Hall Sunflower We Belong Together Unbearably White Jerusalem, New York, Berlin This Life How Long?
finally getting around to this. harmony hall is still song of the year. this life is unreasonably catchy.
Jerusalem, New York, Berlin I think is my favorite at this moment. Beautiful. I also love the Line “we stay united like these old states” on “We Belong Together”. Ezra’s explanation of that song was one of my favorites.
This is honestly probably my least favorite of their four releases but there's still a LOT of great stuff on here. Outside of Harmony Hall my favorite song might actually be Sympathy, that song is so cool
My least favorite has to be the debut by default. Which is crazy because it’s great and was a huge record for me when it came out in college. But the 3 song run of Campus, Bryan, and One is their worst by a large margin.
I thought the lyric in campus was “bulletproof vest, studying romances” for a long time and I felt so dumb when I found out the actual lyric. Now I can’t even hear what I heard before
To be honest, whenever their songs get stuck in my head and I'm singing them in there, I would guess like 70-80% of the words I'm 'singing' in my head to the songs are straight nonsense. Especially the parts where Ezra is singing pretty fast. I'm usually pretty horrible with lyrics and actually knowing WTF singers are saying though.
I like "Campus" and "Bryn" just fine, but I have never listened to the song "One (Blake's Got A New Face)" all the way through. I hate the way Ezra sings "Blake's got a new face" and the backup singers who sing it back are even worse. I do love the blippy keyboard (piano?) sounds in it though .