…one of the greatest live shows in electronic music i’ve ever eyperienced, for exapmle was…
one guy, with two old nintendo game boys running some music maker app…
he had one cable…and was hotplugging!!! from one game boy to the other…
and holy cow…he rocked…!
…yeah…but performace can be ANYTHING…
anything goes…don’t move at all, just staring at the audience while some sonic terror is coming over them can also be a great performance…that’s all about the mindset of how are u pretending…are u great pretender…a show person…a truu performer…or not.
the factor of realness…how real ar U, really…
and will people buy it…or not…again…
bottomline remains…if u act out big time in a music venue, u better do it to ur own creation…
otherwise ur not a musician that performs live…ur a dancer of some kind…
and hey…coverbands are coverbands…no matter how skillful they play their instruments…
Good point.
I think the only cover band I sort of like is Nouvelle Vague.
If We are to really boil it down to a definition, then I guess Live is when a human person have to interact with the music in order to move it forward.
Pressing play on a recording is considered live, but if any changes happens in that recording without a person interacting with it then it stops being live.
So my view is to look at it from more of a quantum state (Schrödingers Live Set) a set can both be live and not live. It can also only be live and it can also not be live…
There I sorted it out… you are very welcome!
Coming from a traditional band background (bass player), I have often felt like a total impostor palying sucessive scenes on Ableton Live.
I don’t know if it matters to the audience - I like to think it does - but I will never do that again. Just for my own sense of justice to myself. And also because it is super boring to follow a predefined path on stage for me.
I like the approach of guys like - yes, everybody expected him to be mentioned - Surgeon, but also
Octave One
and
Simian Mobile Disco
What I like about them, especially, is that both bands seem to integrate the concept of making mistakes like it’s part of the game.
I honestly feel that perfection is boring. And we are at a time when every played performance is expected to be optimized, masterized, etc., which kills the fun a bit IMHO. Mistakes are what makes the human human. Personally, I don’t go to a show to see a sleek and seamless reproduction of the album I heard at home (I was super bored at such a Bonobo concert once). But that’s just me, maybe.
How about generative audio installations? Just to throw a mouse into that box. ; )
I think anyone who’s been lucky enough to see 4’33" live knows that there really is no such thing as anything.
I am (ok was) a bass player too, and I grew tired of being one third or one quarter of the music.
I wanted more control of what was being expressed. Ableton was perfect for that.
And a question, if someone has a strong musical vision, why should they diminish it with mistakes?
Well the aim is to not make mistakes 
I didn’t mean it was necessary. I should have rather used the word “risk”, maybe. Integrating the risk of making mistakes as part of a performance.
I just think Octave One and Simian Mobile Disco both found a good balance between prepared and live performed elements.
…a mindset is a mindset…and imperfection can be as great as perfection is…
an audience can feel how real u are…as a live performer u gotto convince them…
and u can do it by playing all kinds of instruements super sklilful, or totally trashy or by pure will and mindset…
and that’s all what matters, when it comes down to a good live show…
convincing the audience equals entertaining the audience…
and that’s called showbiz…
from super glam to super natural to super artificial to hyper minimal…
all the same…just different approaches…
Damn it!!
Live should mean “performance”, having a whole set pre-programmed and just tweaking a few knobs and “just press play” is cheating your audience and yourself.
Nothing wrong with having pre-programmed stuff like patterns etc, but not the whole set, there should be an element of actually doing stuff, or what is the point?
I will never understand the need of some people to define a performance as something that has to do with a lot of jittery gestures, hands twisting knobs and driving faders etc., for me it is part of a very unhealthy meritocracy that people expect a live performer to exhaust themselves physically on stage.
With that said I highly appreciate a skilled musician who has mastered to play their instruments, but besides that appreciation this is not why I go to “live events”: I’m not there for the spectacle, I go there because of the experience, the connection to the people, the performer(s) and the sound.
For me playing live and improvise is the next step away from studio production. Its more a thing of making sound you maybe never could replicate in a studio . btw here is a video of our last live techno jam
cover bands don’t write the music they perform live
guitars and basses have knobs that get twiddled
and there is nothing that has more jittery gestures on stage than mick jagger
If there is some element of artistry at play, that means if they stop performing, the music either stops or plays the same 4 bar loop endlessly until they cut the power, its live. Couldnt care less what gear/instruments they are using.
DJs all suck unless I like the music they are playing. Which is fucking rare. A lot of live acts suck because they’re too busy trying to be clever. Cover bands suck. Bands suck unless they dont, which is rare.
Live music sucks. Unless its really good.
Frank Zappa once conducted a great classical concert with real orchestra. The audience loved the live performance. Afterwards he told that he was playing a tape with the real orchestra only playbackinging as a joke. That resulted in some rage from the crowd. But only when they heard about the trick.
Was it live?
The music, no
The playbacking, for sure
Isnt it ?
What is live?
Baby don‘t hurt me!
