Underworld... live?

[potatobroth]

all of what Holden says does have some truth to it, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be critiqued.

and believe me as an American loving a UK band, the thoughts of 'get it while you can' is ever-present. I always have a thought of "this may have been the last time i see them live." seeing as how there's 5 years in between tours now stateside.

[negative1]

Originally Posted by philth

You've missed my point. If what they do next is the same as what they do now then I'm fine with that. I'll enjoy it in the moment. And if they change things up, then I hope I'll enjoy that too.

you might be fine with it.

but it gives no one any incentive to see them more than once.
which used to be one of the main reasons to go see them due to the constantly changing setlists.

if they don't want to push (upstairs) themselves back to being creative, that's fine.

but it's been sad to see them go down this (ring) road.

later
-1

[darkvoice]

Beautiful (burnout) said 😉

Originally Posted by negative1

you might be fine with it.

but it gives no one any incentive to see them more than once.
which used to be one of the main reasons to go see them due to the constantly changing setlists.

if they don't want to push (upstairs) themselves back to being creative, that's fine.

but it's been sad to see them go down this (ring) road.

later
-1

[holden]

Originally Posted by negative1

you might be fine with it.

but it gives no one any incentive to see them more than once.
which used to be one of the main reasons to go see them due to the constantly changing setlists.

if they don't want to push (upstairs) themselves back to being creative, that's fine.

but it's been sad to see them go down this (ring) road.

later
-1

I had a long response, but it got deleted due to time out from the forum. In essence, if Underworld kept making Dubno records, would you have stayed with them? Change is inevitable. Embrace the fact that two 50-something guys are still touring new material, and not just wallowing in nostalgia. one can argue that things can be different, but that's only better in our minds, not for those that make the decision. I'll say it again: tours are to sell records, not appease fans. That's why the current live show has 5 (of 7!) cuts off the new record, but it still has a bunch of older singles for casual and long-term fans. Listen, if I programmed an UW gig, chances are that few would come twice. I see your point about variation, even a bit of it, but again, it's not 2003 or 1996 or 1993.R and K have got this covered. I've seen them once, but can revisit dozens of gigs when they improved and changed the setlist, and that's fine for me in 2016.

[negative1]

this makes me sad , from resonance 1999:

the daring sound of dubnobasswithmyheadman was a
strident move away from their scripted songs of the
past, and their live performances broke the old
rules too. in fact, there were no rules whatsoever.
not only is an underworld show 100% live, its' 100%
unique - there are no preconceived set-lists, ideas
or rehearsal. 'it's like taking the best of improvised
jazz and the best of djs and just winging it for
three hours. songs are always deconstructed. there will
be familiar motifs, but it's never done the same two
nights running.' and instead of faking their way
through a bad set, they simply stop and leave the stage.
'every night there's a moment where you go, 'ummm,
this is going to fall flat on its face, unless i do
something fast. that's just the nature of improvising.
i guess. it's very rare that it really falls flat
on its face, if it does, then we just stop and start
again. or, because we work with another dj, darren
price, we might say, 'let's take a break,' and he'll
cut into our set. we'll just leave the stage for 20
minutes and reorganize.'

another group to which hyde became a
contributing member is the small collective
called 'tomato' he and smith helped form
after the demise of the first underworld.
this group of eight visual artists shared
a common need to take refuge from the
exploitive manner in which the business
world behaved in the eighties. tomato
was another experiment that not only
became a wellspring of inspiration and
solidarity, but to their surprise, a
profitable business, as well. essentially
a visual communications group, tomato has
blossomed from small jobs doing album
graphics for soul ii soul and the rolling
stones, to their first break directing
tv commercials. unusual ideas, such as
their unconventional ad campaign for
levi's, has won tomato many awards for
their work. tomato is now able to handle
full-scale production work such as the
recent 'pearls girl' video. hyde explains
tomato, 'we were reacting against the
eighties, basically in that sort of 'me'
generation. a bunch of us decided to
rent a space together and carry on being
individuals but have the benefit of being
a gaoup. when you're in a band you annex
yourself away from the world, you're in this
little bottle in the studio on tour with
the same little group of people or you're
at home. with something like tomato, it
open's us up to so much more contact with
the world, so much more in the way of outside
ideas than just being in a little group'

[jetpig]

"and instead of faking their way
through a bad set, they simply stop and leave the stage.
'every night there's a moment where you go, 'ummm,
this is going to fall flat on its face, unless i do
something fast. that's just the nature of improvising.
i guess. it's very rare that it really falls flat
on its face, if it does, then we just stop and start
again. or, because we work with another dj, darren
price, we might say, 'let's take a break,' and he'll
cut into our set. we'll just leave the stage for 20
minutes and reorganize.'"

I don't think that that's an option anymore. I don't think that's been an option since 1996, really. It worked when they were a smaller group playing regional shows around the UK for the most part, but when you are performing as (and being paid as) a headliner, you can't just dip out for 20 minutes cause your set isn't going so well. I mean let's take the hollywood bowl show. If someone who isn't me paid the $130 for a box seat for that born slippy band and the set veers off course and they just leave for a quarter of their available set time, they're not gonna be a happy camper...

It's odd that this very performance style is the reason they got so popular, and that popularity is the reason they can't really perform like that anymore.

It'd be nice if they could do multiple sets at a fest and do one that's off the cuff on some side stage out of primetime, and another that's their well rehearsed and super slick show. It'd also be nice if they developed some segues between tracks over the course of a tour to keep that dj set vibe going (barking did this to some extent). But it's also nice that they still tour regularly at all as a dance act comprised of two 50-somethings.

[purlieu]

Originally Posted by holden

I'll say it again: tours are to sell records, not appease fans.

Surely not? That might have been the way in the past, but it's been quite a few years now that pretty much every aspect of the music industry - major and independent - has admitted that the money is in live shows these days.

[Billy Goat]

I'm not sure I believe they ever completely improvised as surely some planning went into the paper 'track tape' things Rick famously used to have hanging everywhere? As much as I wish they changed things up over a tour like they did in 2007/8 I think we'd complain about the 'bigger' tracks that were rotated out of the setlist when we see them! I think the main problem is that they have so much great material and not enough time in each gig to play enough of it to keep us all happy
Having said all that, it does kinda suck that I know pretty much exactly what the setlist is going to be for every gig they play now!

[jetpig]

the tape things are simply labels they swap out on the deck that tells them which channel has what loop from a song, so the prep there was only in so much as they need to know what the knob they are touching is connected to. That might simply be kick drum, rez appregio, cowgirl's vocal loop, etc. how and when they got brought in was completely on the fly. It wasn't so improvised as an avant garde jazz performance, per se, but at one point they would only agree upon an opening song before going on, and then have the pieces of whatever tracks they had loaded up on the computer at any given moment to work with. Without active choices and actions nothing would happen or change or develop.

As I understand, that's still heavily the way things are done, but to a very different end.

[Billy Goat]

Originally Posted by jetpig

the tape things are simply labels they swap out on the deck that tells them which channel has what loop from a song, so the prep there was only in so much as they need to know what the knob they are touching is connected to. That might simply be kick drum, rez appregio, cowgirl's vocal loop, etc. how and when they got brought in was completely on the fly. It wasn't so improvised as an avant garde jazz performance, per se, but at one point they would only agree upon an opening song before going on, and then have the pieces of whatever tracks they had loaded up on the computer at any given moment to work with. Without active choices and actions nothing would happen or change or develop.

As I understand, that's still heavily the way things are done, but to a very different end.

That's really interesting and good to know as I always wondered what the tape things were for, I figured they were some sort of 'road map' for each track. I think it's pretty awesome that they just used to turn up and see what would happen! It shows how talented they are!