Quote:
Originally Posted by chiliD
That's been their fatal mistake of creativity...caving in to the middle ground and grinding off the edge of their material. There've been plenty of bands & artists who SHUN the "hits" and still have rabid concert following (Pink Floyd & Neil Young immediately come to mind). There's is absolutely NOTHING wrong WITH leaving the audience "dazed & confused". That's what ART is all about. Shaking the comfort level of the audience. You're not guaranteed to hear "Layla" when you see Clapton (and if you do, it might not be how you EXPECT to hear it)...you're not guaranteed to hear ANYTHING you know of Bob Dylan when you see him in concert. You can never predict what you'll hear from David Bowie, either on record or in concert. Bands like the Allman Brothers (or their younger spin-offs, the Tedeschi Trucks Band or Gov't Mule ) never play the same song the same way twice.
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I wonder how much the addition of the backing musicians who were brought on starting with the Dance tour had to do with this stagnation? If you look back at the '75-early '90s era of Fleetwood Mac, songs like Gold Dust Woman in particular varied from tour to tour, even night to night. There was so much more emotion to live Mac performances before the glut of backing musicians. Now the shows seem more like a Broadway rendition of Fleetwood Mac.
The Rumours incarnation of the band has never really mixed up their setlists, though. I think solo artists like Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, etc can get away with nightly changes & such because they're just that- solo artists. They don't have to run changes by the committee that is a band. I know Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac kept things loose & flexible, but that's a byproduct of performing the blues. Like Richard Dashut said- blues comes from the heart; pop music is much more forcefully & deliberately created.