Live improvs...what goes around comes around!

[holden]

hey folks,

Lately, i've relistened to the oldest UW shows i have, from 1994 and 95, and it's very interesting to hear how the fluidity of those early dates has reimerged somewhat in the latest gigs, 2005-06.
Back then, the boys would jam on a track like "oich Oich" or "Mmm Skyscraper" for literally a half an hour! These gigs are pushing 3 hours of constant beats, rarely a break taken! Sure, you can tell a lot of the time, Rick and Daz are working out things, sometimes roughly, but the tech. and the style were different. Also, they didn't really have to pull out any big hit singles. Nuxx hadn't hit yet, even!

Lately, with Pricey on board, and armed with new tunes from the riverrun series, the shows have aimed toward being heavy on the improvs again. Sure, jamming on Leave Home for 20 minutes is unlikely to still occur, but consider how old faves like Pearls Girl have gotten the makeover with fresh beats (often paired with Yard Beat) and King Of Snake is often extended to include the early mix from the archives. And take the Cocoon gig...new tracks, other artists' tracks, a continuous mix! unheard of for UWjust a few years back!

Contrast this with the era 1998-2003, when you could be fairly confident that the singles would be played, and increasingly as separate tracks. Maybe this had to do with Rick being mostly on his own behind the board post 2000, or maybe as Karl has hinted, they were getting tired of playing the same tracks at the big festivals.

I guess this has been discused in various ways in many threads, but i was wondering, what do you think has been more energizing to the UWLive experience? Darren Price helping to mix and adding improv tracks, or the influx of new UW tunes from riverrun and perhaps in prep for the new LP? Discuss!

[ndrwrld]

Darren Price for Mayor !
altho the thought of hearing some n'oft played old gems tweaks my mind, im really liking priceys touch.
p.s.-TORONTO.

[King of Snake]

well, from things Rick and Karl have mentioned in interviews it seems like during the AHDO tour there was a sort of conscious decision to make the liveset sound more like the album (don't ask me whose bright idea that was ) hence more seperate tracks and less jams.

A while back I can remember Rick saying that they had indeed acted (partly) on fan-feedback for striving for a more improvised liveshow again.
I can imagine that these decisions went along with the fact that during the AHDO tour it was just Rick and Karl and now they have Pricey with them. I think underworld as a threesome definitely works best when playing live.

[crazysugarboy]

I recall reading (or hearing) something around the time of the Eastern Euro tour of June/July 2005 that the reason for bringing Pricey in on the live shows was in order to allow Rick to improvise more - something, I assume, he couldn't do when they were a duo.

[Dirty0900]

I saw UW for the first time at T in the Parl 2003, whilst they were class, i was a little dissapointed that they weren't mixing and improving as much as what id seen in bootelgs and obvisually the EE DVD. I think the inclusion of Pricey is excellent, saw them at Global Gathering and i agree that all the old songs had a new life to them with lots of little tweeks adding to the exeprience.

I just want to see UW in their own setting and not at a festival where i think there inclined to do the hits like BS,KOS,PG etc. Id like a fans show where some other tracks could come out. I wouldnt care if Born Slippy was dropped..

[grady]

I have to agree that the AHDO tour from 02 and into 03 definently seemed like it was more focused on recreating the album tracks as they were. Despite that, the show in San Francisco in October of 2002 was amazing, they played Little Speaker live!

I can only imagine what some of these more recent shows have been like with Pricey worked into the mix. You can witness this by downloading the video of Pearl's Girl from Zurich in 05 where the song takes on an entirely different life unto it's own including the Pricey section near the end.

Where they may taking this experiment, who knows? But can you really complain that much about it?

[King of Snake]

Originally Posted by grady

I can only imagine what some of these more recent shows have been like with Pricey worked into the mix. You can witness this by downloading the video of Pearl's Girl from Zurich in 05 where the song takes on an entirely different life unto it's own including the Pricey section near the end.

you can also download the amsterdam show from uwlive
Has a very nice PG/Yard Beat mashup