This is the real @root cause/issue of all this, imo as well. Bands change absolutely but it is kinda wild how much they seem to be trying to appeal to a different audience/sound now
For me, I remember reading a Rolling Stone article with Bayliss where he basically said “the only reason we used to jam so much in the early days was bc we didnt have a large enough song catalogue to pick from”
That was like a knife through the heart.
Yeah i remember that article
You can easily say that tDB tapped into the EDM crowd by further embracing the daddy untz of their music, and are obviously having a good run.
I couldn’t agree more. The change in musical direction definitely has left me, and I’m sure others, less interested in the band overall. Mantis was somewhat of a departure from their previous work but held true to the “progressive rock” roots they started with. It was, IMO, their last great album, released 15 years ago.
Yeah the biscuits arent pretending they are able to write OK Computer. They show up and do what they do, and have doubled down on it. Sold out Boulder Theater biscuits fan energy was 100x more powerful than Umphreys at red rocks.
Red rocks UM was a bunch of casual people playing with their phones
Even as a noob by certain standards, I’d rather hear songs like, Dump City, Robot World, Smell The Mitten than others
I agree that Similar Skin was an inflection point for the band. But I disagree about how shitty the song writing has gotten. Lots of the new material is great.
They don’t market the new material as well as they could be though from my perspective. While the product at it’s core is the music, Umphrey’s is also a business and they make a lot of questionable business decisions that have coupled with a global pandemic neutered their ascension and actually led to their regression.
Instead of trying to maintain their level of exposure post pandemic they actually ended up gatekeeping a lot of their live material with things like the NFT debacle for the FOH streams amongst other missteps. The bad business decisions correlate with the current optics on the band. But if you listen to last night’s show you can see the product is as good as it’s ever been.
I think @goldlikejoel and co. needs some millennial management and Vince/KB can retire. They’ve fumbled the bag as of late and it’s time for them to go.
I remember in my youth getting pissed @kcsublime (HE SHOVED ME) saying he threw a beer at someone playing on a phone at a show.
Now i support it. Slap iphones out of peoples hands if they play with them incessantly and then stomp on them.
People joke about Tool kicking out phone users but it does ultimately take away from the story that the band is hoping you receive.
I’ve told Joel this multiple times. He doesn’t listen to me lol
Post Similar Skin setlist:
S1: Escape Goat>Staircase>Escape Goat, Attachments>Draconian, Hiccup
S2: Cut Off>Seasons, It Doesn’t Matter>Pure Saturation, Concessions, Cirrus*
E: Small Strides
*Bonobo, 2nd time played
This would be a pretty good show on paper IMO and this could not exist before 2014. The only track older than that is the cover, Cirrus, by Bonobo which was released in 2013.
Idk why but i feel like Joel would be in agreement with this.
I would walk out at set break
Yeah Mike… this would be a nope for me.
I go to Umphrey’s for the jams still. These songs all produce solid improv, outside of Concessions, which I just want to see them play.
I love untz but all those songs are pretty much untz exclusive in the 1st set, when it comes to jams.
In theory they should be able to put a jam in any song. That they choose to do it more with some of the AFAF songs doesn’t make them good songs. Mantis was a way stronger album even if it took years before some of those songs got proper treatment.
…
These are some of my most seen songs. While I love a lot of them, I’m not trying to hear them as much anymore as I want to hear the new material. I always enjoy a mix of old and new songs in a setlist, but I wouldn’t mind hearing one with songs from the last ten years only. There are a lot of great songs to pick from when considering the jam history.
I definitely agree with this post but the point I’m trying to make is while there’s been a lot of throwaway material in the last ten years, there are some diamonds in the rough. I like a lot of the new songs and I appreciate the evolution of the band. They still have my attention.
